With good weather again on their side, Central cross country continued to compete at a high level at the Oct. 7 South Winneshiek Invitational.

“Over half of our team members recorded either career best, season best or course best,” said assistant coach Martha Bauder. “We were also able to see how we are stacking up against seven of our conference teams that we’ll be facing in our conference meet, where we will be adding in three new teams to our conference: Waukon, Crestwood and New Hampton.”

The Warrior boys finished fourth as a team, their score of 128 trailing only Decorah (25), Waukon (66) and South Winneshiek (68). Jesse Polkinghorn posted a career and course best time of 18:21 for 20th place, and Carson Ruegnitz was a close 25th after completing the race in 18:39.3. Henry Reimer was 40th with a 19:10.7, a career and course best for him, while Tyce Zittergruen was 55th with a 19:41.4, Cruz Healy 57th with a 19:50.4 and Declan Finley 59th with a 19:54.1. Breckon Holst and Michael White crossed the finish line a respective 63rd and 64th with times of 20:02.4 and 20:05.6. Holst did so with a career and course best, and it was a season best for White. Lukas Friedlein took the 96th spot on a time of 22:06.3, then Griffin Koehn placed 115th with a season leading time of 23:14.6. Bryce Heller was 121st with a 25:00.9.

In the girls varsity race, Blair Scherf logged a new career and course best of 21:50.3, putting her in 26th place. Payton Stannard cruised to 54th on a career best 23:26.9, followed by Hannah Friedlein in 90th with a 26:21.9—her season best time. Lilly Becwar was 92nd thanks to a career and course best mark of 26:24.5.

Next for the Warriors is the Upper Iowa Conference meet this Thursday, Oct. 16, at the Elkader Golf Course. It begins at 4 p.m.