By Jake Hasenauer - NPHS Cross Country Head Coach
It was a great day for the Bulldogs at the Grand Island Invite! Our word of the week has been commitment and both teams were committed to do everything for their team today! Both teams brought home the team championship today in Grand Island!
It was smiles all around today. This is a tough course, there are some very good teams, and it was a warm day. I told the kids before the race today that no matter what we were not going to use anything as an excuse today. We set out to do everything for our team and went in with the mindset that the course and conditions were the same for everyone and we had to set out to be the toughest team.
The girls put on a very good show today. I was very proud of how the girls competed against some good teams. Last year they won this meet and they were hungry to make it happen again. Zarah Blaesi led the way with a second place finish, followed by Nelia Rivas in 4th, Evelyn Blaesi 5th, Marissa Holm 9th and Baylee Evarts 14th. All the girls did great things. Marissa stepped up big today! She has been running JV all season and today she medaled in her first varsity invite. It was great for our top 5 girls to all finish in the top 15 leading the girls to beat second place Hastings by 24 points!
The boys did something that had not been done in a decade. The boys won the Grand Island Invite by two points! This was the 4th invite the boys have won this season out of five meets. The boys only loss this year came to Grand Island two weeks ago, so they were hungry to try and earn the victory today. Grand Island is a very good program and I was thrilled with the effort the boys gave today to beat them! Last year the Grand Island boys team finished in the top 5 at the state meet and they are ranked number 6 in the state this year, so beating them was very big for the program. The boys were led by a second place finish from Evan Caudy, followed by Aaron Franz in 9th, Tom Moss 10th, Jonah San Miguel 11th, and Quade Lowe 14th.
Our next meet will be at the University of Nebraska-Kearney this coming Monday.