The Whiteoak boys cross country team won first place Saturday at the Aaron Reed Memorial Invitational at Southeastern High School for the second consecutive year, and Wildcat sophomore Landen Eyre took the individual championship in the same fashion.
Whiteoak out paced a talented Chillicothe team for the win and took home first place out of 14 teams.
Eyre won it last year in 17:00, but this year he’s reaping the benefits of his summer running regimen and clocked a 16:20 for the 3.1 mile course. Eyre’s time is the top time of this long-running invitational of the past 14 years (older results were unavailable.) Eyre’s closest competitor was Ryan Richendollar of Adena who was 38 seconds back.
Whiteoak won the team award for a reason though. Weston Blair of Whiteoak was fourth at 17:45 and Christian Price was sixth at 18:24.
“We ran great at the top. One hundred and thirty-five runners and we have three in the top six, Whiteoak coach Doug Hughes said. “That doesn’t happen with luck.Those three have put in huge miles and it’s paying off big.”
Whiteoak’s No. 4 and No.5 runners did their jobs as well.
“ Wade Evans was in a big pack of Chillicothe runners and the race was tight on which team would come out victorious. Wade beat three of those runners and that was big in the final scoring. Bryce Van Hoy ran his personal best this season to keep us on top in the end. He ran his tail off and I greatly appreciated it.”
Evans finished 17th at 19:13 and Van Hoy was 27th at 19:42.
The Wildcats team had seven other runners place in the race. Shawn Mitchell-Cox 44th (20:58), Linus Wik 55th (21:56), Evan DeAtley 66th (22:16), Shane Mitchell-Cox 71st (22:30), Austin Richards 75th (22:48), Jake Ward 82nd (23:14) and Cody Richards 129th (31:30).
Team scores were Whiteoak 43, Chillicothe 61, Leesburg Fairfield 114, Manchester 129, Huntington 176, Rivery Valley 198, Miami Trace 200, South Webster 209, Frankfort Adena 226, Zane Trace 229, West Union 261, McClain 331, Wellston 333 and Washington C.H. 346.
Information for this story was provided by Doug Hughes, Whiteoak cross country coach.
