Solid Starting Point
Lady Jackets 2nd, Hennessey 6th in first XC meet of season
KINGFISHER’S Rylee Long-Bush (center) and Hennessey’s Kate Curran (right) are in pursuit of Weatherford’s Symphony Welsh near the finish line of the Sand Plum Invitational. Long-Bush was able to pass Welsh to take 74th place overall. Curran was two
CROSS COUNTRY runners Conner Askey of Kingfisher battles Hennessey’s Seth Sims (center) and Asher Ward down the final stretch of the meet in Weatherford. Sims won that mini-battle as he placed 62nd in the high school boys’ race, one spot ahead of Aske
Scout Snodgrass wasn’t exactly pleased with her time.
Yet she knows why and projects her times to improve as the 2024 cross country season moves along.
Snodgrass took fourth place individually Saturday to lead Kingfisher High School’s girls to a second-place finish at the Sand Plum Invitational in Weatherford.
She finished the 1.5mile course in 9:35.4.
That time was some 22 seconds slower than when she won the race in 2023.
“I haven’t spent as much time training for cross country this year,” said Snodgrass, now a junior. “I spent most of my time training for track, so I’m not in cross country shape yet.
“I’ll get in better cross country shape as the season goes on.”
Snodgrass geared her training this summer toward track in order to compete for a spot in the AAU Junior Olympics. She qualified for that national meet in two events.
Kingfisher had four medalists in this year’s event.
Lily Lunsford, runner up to Snodgrass last year, was sixth overall out of 104 runners. She crossed the finish line in 9:41.6.
Snodgrass was third among the runners scoring for their respective teams and Lunsford was fifth.
Harper Evans used a late kick to take ninth (eighth scoring) in 9:48.3.
Terry Ann McCully took 20th (17th) with a time of 10:17.4.
Rylee Long-Bush also scored for KHS as she crossed in 74th (64th) with a time of 12:30.4.
KHS scored 97 points, well behind champion Southwest Covenant’s 34.
Weatherford was fourth with 101, Thomas fifth with 126 and Hennessey sixth with 131 points.
The Lady Eagles were led by Jocelyn Matousek’s time of 9:42.7. That was good for seventh (sixth) place.
Emma Copeland was 11th (10th) to also medal for the Lady Eagles.
For Kingfisher, new coach Stefan Seifried considers the Weatherford meet a starting point...in more ways than one.
KHS won the meet last year when seven Lady Jackets were among the first nine to cross the finish line.
Four of those runners are now gone, either by graduation or moving.
Moving forward with his team, Seifried said the Lady Jackets will build on what they did Saturday.
“The biggest takeaway is that we set times for the season, Seifried said. “We had a few kids gone and will be in full force this week.
“I was proud of what we did and it was a great starting point.”
KHS travels to the Watonga Cross Country Invitational this Saturday.
The meet is 2,500 meters (just over 1.5 miles) for high school girls and 4,000 meters (just under 2.5 miles) for high school boys.
••• No county schools had a full boys team in the meet.
Dover, Hennessey and Kingfisher each had two individuals running.
Dover’s Nathan Cohee was the first among them to cross the finish line.
He placed 53rd out of 138 runners.
He ran the two-mile course in 11:43.5.
Hennessey’s Seth Sims was next as he placed 62nd with a time of 11:55.5.
Two county runners were right behind him.
Kingfisher’s Conner Askey took 63rd in 11:56.4 and the Eagles’ Asher Ward was 64th in 11:56.6.
in
13:26.0.