GCHS CROSS COUNTRY: Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020
There were two things working against the Garden City Buffaloes girls and boys cross country teams on Tuesday, Sept. 22.
First, they only had 5 days recovery time from their previous 5-kilometer race at Hays. Second, the layout at Tuesday’s Ulysses Invitational turned out to be longer than the normal 5-k layout, although nobody could tell coach Krista Linenberger the actual distance they ran.
The competing obstacles resulted in the obvious slower times and the lack of recovery day turned into sub-par finishes for both the boys and girls teams.
The Buffaloes’ boys did take first in the 8-team race there with 50 points to nudge runner-up Lakin, which had 52 and Stanton County’s third-place total of 54. On the girls side, the Lady Buffs took third among five competing teams with 51 points. Stanton County of Johnson ran away with the team title by scoring just 27 points to runner-up Southwestern Heights’ 46.
“It just seems like they’re off some at a couple of our meets,” Linenberger said. “It was certainly long. For only having a few days recovery, I thought the kids ran well.”
For the Buffs’ boys, Devon Chappel had the top finish, taking third in a time of 18:25.46 while Brody Hoff was not far behind in fifth with a mark of 18:54.77. Kenji Craig was 12th in 20:00.31, Joel Contreras 14th in 20:23.19, Evan Gurrola 19th at 20:55.01 and Isaiah Casados 25th in 21:13.42. There were 56 runners.
Sophomore Jocelyn Sosa once again paced the Lady Buffs with a fourth-place finish in 22:27.08. Andrea Hernandez took 8th to earn a top 10 finish with a time of 24:14.82. Selah Hageman was 12th in 24:36.58, Samantha Orozco 16th in 24:58.58, Lana Rodriguez 22nd in 26:17.31 and Abby Aguilar 23rd in 26:47.20. There were 38 runners.
Next up for the Buffs will be the Newton Invitational on Oct. 3.
Garden City High School 