Sidney Cross Country places in UNK meet

The Sidney High School cross country teams competed in the University of Nebraska-Kearney meet Monday, Sept. 25, a meet that can be called a warm-up to State competition.

The boys team finished 12th in a field of 22 teams and the girls 15th of 20 teams.

"All in all, I was very impressed," said Sidney Coach Donna Wiedeburg. "It is the most teams we see."

She said the University of Nebraska-Kearney meet matches Sidney against teams they will not see again unless at State competition. Additionally, Monday's meet was cold and wet.

"I've coached for 12 years, and this is the second coldest meet," she said.

According to Wiedeburg, some runners were conservative running the last stretch of the race because it was a slippery downhill route.

Collin Brauer lead the Sidney boys with an eighth place finish and a time of 17:00.7. Kaden Fowers finsihed in 42nd place with a time of 17:58.4, and Jacob Peckham finished 76th place with a time of 18:30.2, a tenth of a second behind TJ Renner of McCook. Colton Peckham came in 84th place with a time of 18:36.3, and Caedon Sniker finished 94th with a time of 18:43.8.

Mitch Porter came in 99th with a time of 18:49.4, Alex Jallen finished 132nd with a time of 19:21.1, Ben Bashtovoi came in 146th place with a time of 19:32.2, a tenth of a second behind Edvin Ortiz of Lexington, Taylor Hart finished in 186th place with a time of 20:29.9, Christian Meyer 190th with a time of 20:32.5.

Tristan Ahrendt finished 209th place with a time of 21:02.5, followed by William Draper in 212th place with a 21:05.9, Zack Sherman in 213th place with a time of 21:09.7, Damien ampos in 214th place with a time of 21:11.8.

The first Sidney runner to cross the line in the girls race was Charlie Brockhaus. Brockhaus clocked in at 21:32.5 for 29th place in the field of 199 runners. She improved her time by almost three minutes from the same race in 2016. Next behind Brockhaus was Taighlor Arnett in 47th place with a time of 22:01.5.

Hannah Kennedy finished 22:21.9 in 61st place and Miranda Ahrendt finished in 101st place with a time of 23:36.5.

"The kids battled hard," Wiedeburg said.

She said immediately after the UNK meet, kids were asking "what do we need to do" to do better and place well in the Western Conference meet.

Sidney is hosting the Western Conference cross country meet this Saturday. The meet takes place at Deer Run Park and is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m.