Stark County XC season ends at sectional

By JEFF LAMPE
For The Prairie News
OREGON – Despite running her best race ever on the challenging new sectional course here, Stark County senior Ashley Orrick narrowly missed advancing to the Class 1A state cross country meet last Saturday.
Orrick placed 29th out of 148 finishers overall in 21:31 on the 3.1-mile course for the Lady Rebels, who placed 12th as a team. Alex Welch (64th, 18:54), the first SC boys runner to compete in a sectional, also ran well, but missed advancing to state Saturday at Detweiller Park in Peoria.
“Ashley ran her best race ever on this layout and came up just short of qualifying as an individual, but did run very well,” Rebels Coach Bob Rennick Jr. said. “Alex also ran a great race in a very fast field. I was very pleased with his performance. Our choice was run for time, or lay out and run at qualification, he chose the later and went for it.”
Other scoring girls runners for Stark County were Paige Rewerts (50th, 22:26), Kokone Kasaya (79th, 24:03), Keagon Hamilton (99th, 24:51) and Emily Orrick (122nd, 26:28). The other SC runners were Sarah Kraklow (123rd, 26:29) and Katie Grinnell (142nd, 30:01).
“Overall our season was very successful,” Rennick said. “Of the eight girls on the team, only two had run regularly over the last few seasons, Ashley and Paige. We were very young and inexperienced, but I was very pleased at qualifying out of regional and how competitive we were. For the boys, we did not have numbers for a team, but they were focused and trained very hard.”
Football playoffs – The postseason has not been kind to local teams, as only Abingdon-Avon remains out of the Lincoln Trail Conference.
And A-Town’s 14-8 win came over Annawan Wethersfield. Only Farmington is left out of the Prairieland Conference, which had crossover games with the LTC this season.
Other scores:
Ottawa Marquette def. Princeville, 32-7
Iroquois West def. United, 35-26
Sterling Newman def. Mercer County, 33-24
Kankakee Bishop McNamara def. Knoxville, 42-14
LTC honors – Stark County junior Daniel Kieser was named to the Lincoln Trail Conference first team as a punter.
Other Rebels earning all-LTC honors include:
• Second team ­– Senior Blake Orwig, offensive line; Kieser, kicker; and Christian Brady, defensive line.
Princeville had three first-teamers (RJ Ahten, K; Gage DeVries, OL and DL; and Grant Hunt, DB); three second-teamers (Denver Hoerr, RB/LB; Kellen Francis DL; and Ahten, P); and two honorable mention picks (Francis, OL, and Brower, LB).