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Wildcat girls take second at Prairie View, Cotter earns runner-up for boys

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The Louisburg girls cross country team pose with their second place team medals following last Thursday’s Ramsey Invitational at Prairie View.

LA CYGNE — The Louisburg cross country team brought home their fair share of hardware from the Ramsey Invitational last Thursday at Prairie View High School. 


Both teams had their best performance of the season and it all started on the girls side. The Wildcat girls finished second in the team standings with 41 points, 10 points behind Jayhawk-Linn.

Although they didn’t have the numbers to qualify as a team, the Wildcat boys had strong performances of their own as they had three top 10 medalists.

Freshman Hailey Shelton led the Wildcat girls on the Prairie View course as she took seventh overall in 24 minutes and 22 seconds. Teammate Talen McMurray was right behind her in 24:24 in eighth.

Senior Marissa Vallejo also left Prairie View with a medal as she took 10th overall in 24:47. Freshmen Annie Hornberger (25:04), Anna Cotter (25:25) and sophomore Luciana Vallejo  (27:57) took 12th, 14th and 20th, respectively.

“It was a great meet for our girls,” Louisburg coach John Reece said. “We had girls really improve as they are understanding how to race. Hailey ran a great race and really moved through the pack in the last 2 kilometers. Talen ran strong as well. We are getting there and hope to be rolling come regionals.”

On the boys side, sophomore Levi Cotter was less than two seconds from winning the race. Cotter medaled for the second straight week as he was second in 18:31, just behind Fort Scott freshman Lincoln Fess.

Sophomore Truman Ellison also finished toward the top of the standings as he took fourth in 18:39, while another sophomore, Spencer Mattison, was 10th in 19:40.

Senior Ben Proctor rounded out the Wildcat team in 27th with a time of 21:53.

“Levi had an amazing race as he ran a controlled the first mile and then really moved through the field to challenge for the win,” Reece said. 

On Saturday, Louisburg senior Jerynce Brings Plenty competed in the one of the most competitive high school cross country meets in the state — the Rim Rock Classic. The meet, which was held at Rim Rock Farm in Lawrence, brings in the top runners in all classes from across the area.

Brings Plenty battled the field, but an injury hampered him. He still finished the race in 19 minutes and 51 seconds, which was good for 224th out of 306 runners.

“Rim Rock is an amazon course that is challenging,” Reece said. “Jerynce had his own challenge as he cramped up at about 3K, but stuck it out and finished the race. It was not the day we were looking for, but every race cannot be your best.”

The Louisburg team will hit the course once again this Thursday as it competes at the Perry-Lecompton Invitational at Hummer Sports Park in Topeka. Events begin at 5 p.m.