Cross country: Sterling boys, girls repeat as Twin Cities Meet champions

ROCK FALLS – The Sterling, Newman and Rock Falls boys and girls cross country teams competed in the annual Twin Cities Meet at Centennial Park on Tuesday afternoon.

The Golden Warriors boys, led by individual champion Dale Johnson, ran away with the team title, placing four runners in the top five in a 19-point effort. Rock Falls took second with 46 and Newman finished third with 69 in the three-team race.

[ Photos: Twin Cities Cross Country meet in Rock Falls ]

On the girls side, Sterling edged Rock Falls for first place with 26 points, winning by five. Rockets junior Ariel Hernandez was the individual winner. Newman also competed with an incomplete team.

Johnson, who recently won races at the Galesburg Invite and First to Finish Invite, defended his Twin Cities title in a field of 32 runners with a time of 15:08 – 48 seconds faster than the second-place finisher. Joining Johnson in the top five were senior teammates Parker Janssen (15:56, 2nd) and Jordan Britt (16:20, 4th) and junior Aalin Schmidt (16:22, 5th). Sterling junior Parker Blakeslee added a seventh-place finish (16:50) to the winning effort.

“It felt good. There were some good people here, but I felt like I could dominate the field today,” Johnson said. “I think our team ran really well today and so did the other guys, so it was a really good race for everybody.”

The second-place Rock Falls boys were led by junior Gunnar Damhoff, who finished sixth in 16:27. Junior Anthony Valdivia (16:51, 8th), sophomore Gabe Moyer (16:51, 9th) and senior Brady Root (17:02, 10th) also placed top 10 for the Rockets.

The third-place Newman boys were paced by senior Lucas Simpson, who clocked a 15:58 to finish third individually.

“The first mile I was just staying with the pack up front, and then second mile is normally my worst, so I thought I’d push it today, and I did that,” Simpson said. “I thought I did pretty good. I wasn’t tired that much, so I feel like I can get more out of me.”

Hernandez, who finished 22nd out of 200 runners in the Class 2A girls race at the First to Finish Invite in Peoria on Saturday, ran away with the girls title. Her time of 18:38 led the 19-runner field by 36 seconds.

“I thought I ran good. Usually in any other race, there’s always someone out in front of me during the first mile, so it was kind of hard to push through the race without having someone in front of me,” Hernandez said. “I didn’t blow myself up [the] first mile, so I saved energy for the second mile, and then I was able to actually finish because the last few races I’ve just been crawling to the finish line.”

Rockets’ senior Hana Ford took third in 19:27, while sophomore teammate Kat Scott finished sixth in 20:35.

Sterling senior Rhylee Wade, last year’s Twin Cities girls champion, had the runner-up finish with a time of 19:14. Wade led her team with a 56th overall finish at First to Finish on Saturday.

“I’m disappointed in how I ran, but being content with second. You always want first,” Wade said. “I do not feel like I paced myself well. I’m not used to this course, so I think I paced myself kind of funky, but it is what it is now.”

Sterling freshman Jaz’Mya Castaneda finished fourth in 19:30, while sophomore teammate Delia Block was fifth in 19:49.

Newman sophomore Sophia McCoy paced her team with a 12th-place finish in 24:24.