Wildcats bring home four medals from Wellsville

Louisburg’s Trinity Moore (right) and Carlee Gassman get off to a good start Thursday at the Wellsville Invitational. Both runners earned medals for Louisburg as Moore took sixth and Gassman 14th. 

WELLSVILLE – For the last two meets, the Louisburg High School cross country team has had to navigate through courses that featured steep hills, which gave the Wildcat runners a good early season test.

The Wildcats competed on a more flat terrain Thursday when they traveled to the Wellsville Invitational, and while that course featured difficulties of its own, Louisburg still came away with plenty of positives to build upon.

Four runners medaled for the Wildcats, including three top-10 finishes that paced Louisburg to its best finish of the young season.

The Louisburg girls team was one spot short of earning team medals. The Lady Cats took fourth overall with 101 points. Fort Scott won the meet with 55, Spring Hill was second with 83 and Eudora was third with 85 points.

Sophomore Trinity Moore medaled in her third consecutive meet to start the season as she took sixth in 21 minutes and 57 seconds. Sophomore teammate Carlee Gassman also picked up her second varsity medal of the year as she crossed the finish line in 14^th in 22:48.

“We ran well at Wellsville,” Louisburg coach John Reece said. “The girls just missed team medals as they finished fourth. Trinity continues to have a good season and Carlee ran her best time for the year, which moved her into the No. 6 spot for our all-time top seven runners. The girls continue to push each other through performances at meets and during workouts.”

Isabelle Holtzen was third on the Louisburg girls team as she ran a 24:12 to take 29^th overall, while teammates Reilly Alexander (24:47) and Kaitlyn Lewer (25:24), took 37^th and 39^th, respectively.

Emily Williams (25:38) finished 44^th and Shaylor Whitham (26:39) took 50^th to round out the Louisburg girls team.

Seniors Tim Smith and Wyatt Reece continue to push each other on the boys side. Smith ran his way to a fourth place finish in 17:40 and Reece, who worked his way throughout the race to get up to the front of the pack, came in sixth with a time of 18:13.

“Tim ran a great race to finish fourth,” coach Reece said. “He was running by himself for most of the meet and was able to keep pressing to maintain his spot. Wyatt made up a ton of ground during the race to finish sixth. This was our first meet to field a full varsity boys team and they did great.”

Louisburg freshman Cade Holtzen (left) and Evan Murphy stay with a pack of runners Thursday at the Wellsville Invitational.

Freshman Cade Holtzen was third on the Wildcat team with a time of 20:44 to finish 51^st overall and sophomore Evan Murphy was right behind him in 52^nd with a time of 20:50. Freshman Carson Houchen rounded out the Louisburg boys team in 74^th in 22:13.

As a team, Louisburg finished ninth out of 13 teams with 184 points. Eudora won the meet with 71 points.

The Wildcats will try and continue their improvement this Thursday when they travel to the Prairie View Invitational.

“We continue to race well, and with a slight change in our training schedule for the season compared to last year, we hope to see some big gains over the next few weeks as we gear up for league, regional, and state meets,” coach Reece said.