Lady Cats finish third at Pittsburg, earn two individual medals

Louisburg junior Carlee Gassman was one of several runners who helped the Lady Cat cross country team to a third-place finish at the Pittsburg Invitational. 

PITTSBURG – The Louisburg High School girls cross country team made it 3-for-3 in team medals following its performance Thursday at the Pittsburg Invitational.

The Lady Cats earned a top three finish for the third time this season as they took third overall with 86 points, just six points behind runner-up Paola. Carl Junction (Mo.) won the meet with 40 points.

Louisburg continued its improvement at Four Oaks Golf Course in just its third meet of the season. The Lady Cats medaled two individual runners as junior Trinity Moore and freshman Reese Johnson shaved time off their season best.

Moore medaled sixth overall with a time of 19 minutes and 54 seconds as she medaled in the top 10 for the third time this year.

Johnson also made her way up the top times in Louisburg High School history. The Louisburg freshman finished in 19:56, which was good for eighth overall and moved her to No. 2 all-time on the LHS leaderboard.

“The girls team continues to improve and move forward as a group,” Louisburg coach John Reece said. “Our third place finish matched last year, but I feel like we ran even better as a team than last year. Reese and Trinity continue to push the limits and race great. Carlee (Gassman), Reese and Trinity train together on all pace work so the take that into meets and race well together.”

Junior Carlee Gassman finished in the top 20, just a few spots out of a medal. Gassman finished in 19^th with a time of 21:11 and freshman teammate Delaney Wright was 28^th in 21:53.

Senior Shaylor Whitham was 30^th in 22:11, while junior Emily Williams (23:32) and senior Kaitlyn Lewer (23:58) took 43^rd and 48^th, respectively, out of 77 runners.

On the boys side, junior Anthony Davis led the Wildcat runners with a time of 18:35 to finish 28^th overall. Junior Evan Murphy was second on the team in 18:48 to take 35^th  and sophomore Cade Holtzen was right behind him in 37^th with a time of 18:51.

Sophomore Carson Houchen (19:48) took 61^st and freshman Ben McKain (20:25) was 74^th. Seniors Gareth Baus (20:38) and Jackson Staab (22:36) rounded out the Wildcat team in 82^nd and 98^th, respectively.

“The boys made great gains both individually and as a team,” Reece said. “Anthony, Cade and Evan have been working great together and they race well together which showed at Pitt.

“The team did great as a whole. Pittsburg’s course is fairly flat which makes for fast times. The biggest challenge is that the course is flat and you have to push the whole race, no down hills to really relax.”

In the junior varsity girls race, sophomore Kennady Wilkerson finished sixth in 24:14 to lead Louisburg.

The Wildcats are back in action this Thursday when it hosts the Louisburg Invitational at Lewis-Young Park. The meet is set to begin at 4 p.m.