Oregon’s Daniel Gonzalez leads area runners at Amboy Columbus Day Invitational

SUBLETTE — With many of last year’s local Class 1A cross country runners lost to graduation, the Amboy Columbus Day Invitational proved to be the domain of schools outside of this area. The highest finish among Sauk Valley teams on Shady Oaks’ 2.9-mile course was an eighth by the Oregon girls and ninth by the Forreston-Polo boys.

Newman was hit particularly hard, with only one competitor total. This after being one of the front-runners in the boys race for over a decade.

“For a small school, I guess we’ve been lucky to have as many kids out and be as competitive as we’ve been in last 15 years,” Newman coach Pat Warkins said. ”I could see it coming, though. There haven’t been as many in the middle school out. I need to do some fast talking this spring to build it back up.”

Besides graduation, the Comets lost their top runner, Wyatt Widolff, to football. Widolff ran a 1:55 leg on the state champion 3,200 relay last spring.

“We lost 18 seniors,” Erie-Prophetstown coach Liz Green said. “But, we have a lot of enthusiasm and enough to fill both boys and girls teams.”

Leading the way among area runners was junior Daniel Gonzalez, of Oregon, who took 20th place with a time of 16:30. Last year, he sat out the race with an injury.

“I was happy with my kick and passed quite a few guys,” Gonzalez said. “The hill was brutal, though.”

Teammate Ella Dannhorn agreed.

“The hills here are harder than at Park West (Oregon’s home course).” Danhorn said. “With how tough it is, it is more of a mental race.”

Dannhorn finished 22nd overall with a clocking of 20:48. It was her third time placing in the top 25 in the girls meet.

Other scorers for Oregon were Jillian Hammer in 35th, Christine Ramirez 37th, Melanie Carrillo 66th and Madeline Rogers 72nd. The Hawks tallied 200 points for the 8th-place finish.

Perennial power Winnebago was first with 49, followed by an up-and-coming Byron squad with 92 in the 16-team field.

Led by Gemma Moore in 34th (21:34), Bureau Valley was 10th place, followed by E-P (12th), Amboy (15th) and Forreston-Polo (16th).

In a tight finish in the boys race, Elmwood-Brimfield was first with 55 points, Winnebago second at 59 and Aurora Central Catholic third at 62.

Nicolai Martino, of Winnebago – undefeated this season and the favorite to win the 1A individual title – ran a 15:11 to win by 7 seconds. Tim Starwalt of Byron was nipped for second by Grady Smith of Johnsburg.

Amboy got a 20th place from Henry Nichols (16:53). Taking 35th was West Carroll’s Roscoe Davies (17:05).

Other top 50 finishers in the 161-man field were Isaiah McDearmon (17:16) of Morrison, Maddox Moore (17:27) of Bureau Valley, and Justin Wainscott (17:34) and Noah Genandt (17:34) of Forreston-Polo.

Bureau Valley, Amboy, Erie-Prophetstown, Oregon and West Carroll finished in the bottom half of the standings.