Wildcats medal four at Wamego Invitational

Louisburg sophomore Maddy Rhamy leads a pack of runners Saturday during the Wamego Invitational at Wamego Country Club.

WAMEGO — In what is its most challenging regular season meet of the year, the Louisburg cross country team brought home four medals.

The Wildcats traveled to the Wamego Invitational on Saturday and competed against some of the top Class 4A teams across the state. They more than held their own.

Senior Jaden Vohs had a top 10 finish and medaled for the boys, while sophomore Emma Vohs, senior Reese Johnson and sophomore Maddy Rhamy each earned an individual medal as well.

“Despite having to leave an hour earlier to start our day, the kids ran well at Wamego,” Louisburg coach John Reece said. “Anytime you get a chance to preview the State course and 4A competition, you jump at the chance. With both junior varsity and varsity running this year, all runners that were ready got to experience the course.”

Jaden was toward the top of the pack for most of the race and took seventh overall in 17 minutes and 2 seconds. He shaved 50 seconds off his previous personal best time from a week ago.

“Jaden is the epitome of a new cross country runner,” Reece said. “He is learning the sport quickly and his performances are indicative of his hard work. He ran a great race on a challenging course and made those around him earn their place. He put in some big surges to break some and drag some to top performances.”

On the girls side, Emma Vohs led the Lady Cat runners in 12th place in 21:38 and senior Reese Johnson was 21st in 22:04. Sophomore Maddy Rhamy was 25th in 22:16.

As a team, the Louisburg were girls were sixth out of 15 teams with 190 points. Eudora won the meet with 50 points.

Juniors Bree Gassman (24:14) and Nova Ptacek (24:16) were 69th and 70th, respectively. Freshman Madison Huggins was sixth on the team in 73rd in 24:28 and sophomore Erin Apple was 88th in 25:47.

“The girls continue to improve and medaling three was awesome,” Reece said. “They are training great and are really working together in practice to improve as a group. Cross country is an individual-team sport and all of the runners are pushing to improve themselves, which makes the team stronger.”

The Louisburg boys finished 10th out of 15 points teams with 257 points.

Sophomore Noah Cotter was second on the team in 52nd with a time of 18:57. Freshman Jerynce Brings Plenty was 55th in 19:00 and junior Leo Martin was 74th in 19:52.

Junior Landon Henry took 90th in 20:54, while senior Sawyer Richardson (21:22) and sophomore Max LaJoie (21:31) were 97th and 98th, respectively.

Louisburg is back in action today when the Wildcats travel to the Wellsville Invitational.

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