Hot and sunny conditions were prevalent on Thursday at Spring Lake State Park northwest of Jefferson for the Greene County Invitational Cross-Country Meet. The Rams finished second among eight boys’ teams and (fourth among four girls’ squads. Ogden won the boys’ team title with 68 points and the Rams were next at 75. Denison-Schleswig had 79 with 89 for Southeast Valley (Gowrie) , 94 by Perry, 106 for Roland-Story (Story City), Panorama (Panora) 180, and West Central Valley (Stuart) 203.

The Rams scored 104 points, well behind the 23 of first place R-S. D-S was second at 49, and Panorama third with 65. The other girls’ teams did not have enough runners for a team score.

Junior Brady Carstensen ran the five kilometers (3.1 miles) in 17 minutes, 57.26 seconds, good for fifth place, his highest career individual finish. Sophomore Nick Black was tenth in 18:18.77, followed by senior Jaden Koller, fourteenth in 18:55.75, sophomore Kole Johnson-Peterson was twentieth in 19:32.98, and junior Eli Carstensen was twenty-sixth in 20:31.04. The other Rams that counted in the team score also had their highest varsity places. There were 87 boys that completed the race.

Junior Evelyn Snyder finished nineteenth in 25:41.90 to lead the Rams in the girls’ race. Sophomore Rylee Mowrer was next in 26:47.86, good for 23rd place, followed by senior Leah McCormick, 29th in 28:12.21, sophomore Cora Powers, 37th in 30:57.44, and sophomore Gwen Simmonds, 39th in 31:02.42. Snyder finished first on the Greene County team for the first time in her varsity career. There were 42 girls complete the race.

Jeff Lamoureux is the head coach of both Greene County squads. He told Raccoon Valley Radio “I am extremely proud of the progress this team is making. It was a solid field of teams and to finish second is the result of the hard work they put in. I feel this will build our confidence going forward. I don’t want to forget the girls though. They have shown tremendous improvement.  I think as we get healthy we will see the girls’ times come down. Their confidence is on the rise also.”

The next meet for the Rams is the Panorama Invitational in Panora on Thursday, Sept. 18.