The West Holt Huskies cross country team will be sending will be sending some runners down to the state meet in Kearney on Friday, Oct. 20 after finding success at the class D district three meet on Wednesday, Oct. 11.
The district meet would get off to a strange start before the day even arrived, with the meet being moved forward a whole day because of inclement weather. Because of the expected wind and rain, the Huskies traveled over to Ainsworth a day early.
With 13 teams entered in the boy’s race and 10 teams entered in the girls’ race, the pressure was on for the Huskies to perform well, with only the top three teams qualifying for the state meet.
Despite the race being a day early, the Huskies came out swinging, looking to secure their spot at state. The day began with the girls’ race, where the Huskies knew they had a good chance to succeed.
With the district loaded with tons of great competition from schools such as Ainsworth, North Central, and Elkhorn Valley, the Huskies had to fight and claw with all they had to punch their ticket to state.
At the end of the race, the Huskies would earn the third-place team spot in the district, just good enough to punch their ticket as a team to the state meet in Kearney.
Leading the way for the Huskies was senior Madison Davis, who finished the race in fourth place with a time of 21:12.20. Closely behind Davis was the freshman, Felycia Kerkman, who came up big for the Huskies with a 12th place finish.
The Huskies earned the third-place trophy by five points, edging out Elkhorn Valley. West Holt joined Ainsworth and North Central as the three teams from district three going to state.
Following the girls’ competition, it was the boys’ opportunity to lengthen their season.
Unfortunately for West Holt, the boys couldn’t find as much success as the girls as a team, but Drew Martin rose to the top for the Huskies. Martin continued doing what he’s done all season, and dominated the field individually, finding his pace and riding it all the way to first place to crown himself district champion, finishing a full 21 seconds ahead of the runner-up racer.
Martin would be the only boy runner for the Huskies to qualify for the state meet, as no other Husky boys’ runners would place inside the top 15, and the team would finish in sixth.
Full individual and team placings from the class D district three meet are as follows:
Girls race
Place Name Time
4 Madison Davis 21:12.14
12 Felycia Kerkman 23:27.15
16 Ava Hoffman 23:07.32
19 Anel Monasterio 23:39.01
24 Emersyn Mlady 23:57.90
Team Placings
Place Team Score
1 Ainsworth 15
2 North Central 24
3 West Holt 29
Boys race
Place Name Time
1 Drew Martin 17:25.12
28 Alex Gotschall 20:33.43
35 Ian Shane 21:11.04
39 Hunter Wettlaufer 21:26.81
Team Placings
Place Team Score
1 Elkhorn Valley 24
2 Boyd County 25
3 Valentine 26
4 Creighton 49
5 Osmond 56
6 West Holt 56