Edmunds County Tribune -

Ipswich finished in second place in both the girls and boys varsity team standing at the Lake Region Conference cross country meet last Wednesday in Ipswich. The LRC is known to be competitive in just about any sport you name and that was true here Wednesday, Oct. 7.

The Aberdeen Christian varsity girls upended Ipswich 10 to 19 for their team title, while Frederick Area was third with 23 points and Faulkton fourth with 44. Meanwhile, on the boys' varsity side, Northwestern topped Ipswich 12 to 23, closely followed by Frederick with 25 points and again Faulkton fourth at 27.

But individually there were two impressive varsity winners that day. On the girls' side Northwestern's Ella Boekelheide out-ran the competition in 20:02.24 with Frederick Area's Morgan Sumption second in 20:28.03. For the varsity boys Warner's Cody Larson simply out-distanced the field with his 15:48.20 effort. (The runner-up, Faulkton's Hunter Niederbaumer, was a very distant second in 17:18.31.)

The Ipswich girls contingent was led by Ashlinn Hartwell in fifth at 20:46.08, followed by Gabielle Wald ninth in 21:28.84 and Gracyn Kadlec also a Top Tenner in tenth-place in 21:31.57. Sommer DeRaad was 12th in 21:36.44 and Emily DeRaad 13th in 21:57.67. Next was Ashley Ptacek in 15th in 22:29.25, while Madyson Gellhaus completed the effort with her 19th-place 26:04.78 clocking.

Ipswich placed one runner in the Top 10 of the boys' varsity outcome and that would prove to be Taylor Thorson in fifth in 17:57.84. Next were Xavier Kadlec 11th in 18:28.19 and Dylan Wald 15th in 19:16.85. Evan Onken was 25th in 23:26.96.

There were some JV results as well and Ipswich was first among the girls with a perfect 6 team points. Sienna Kessler won it in 17:41.48 with Ava Davis third in 19:31.40 and Reaghan Bowers fourth in 19:39.08. Makala DeRaad finished seventh in 21:32.29, followed by Natalie Crissman eighth in 22:15.93.

The boys' JV race was entered by Turner Thorson who was second only to Aberdeen Christian's Holden Bartel (15:19.90 compared to 16:00.03).

In girls' middle-school team scoring, Ipswich finished second behind Northwestern. (The Wildcats had 12 points and Ipswich 15.) Aberdeen Christian was third with 24 points. The individual winner was also from Northwestern in the person of Tara Blachford with a 13:08.33 clocking. Ipswich's Katelyn Tufte was third in 13:58.07, followed by Anna Nierman fifth in 14:01.22 and Bella Unser tenth in 16:33.32. Kierstin Pietz rounded out their effort with her 11th-place 16:40.67 effort.

The boys' middle-school outcome was won by Aberdeen Christian's Luke Kaiser in 11:20.01. Ipswich had three competitors in that race, led by Clayton Horst in 14th in 13:17.21, followed by Tyler Gellhaus 17th in 14:08.52 and Jon Kintz 18th in 14:34.55. That helped produce 37 team points for the youthful Tiger boys, placing them fourth in the middle-school team standings. Faulkton won it 13 to 14 over Frederick Area with Northwestern third with 28 points.

The regionals were set for today Wednesday, October 14 in Gettysburg, starting at 1 p.m. The state meet will be held in the Rapid City area on October 24.