By Jason Wesseldyk
Sports Editor
BANGOR—The boys cross country teams from Plainwell and Paw Paw had quite the battle for the top spot at the Bangor Invitational on Saturday, Sept. 20.
And despite putting all five of their scoring runners in the top 20 of the 13-team field, the Trojans fell short by three points and finished as runners-up with 50 points.
Kalamazoo Homeschool was third with 101 points, while Allegan placed fourth with 109 points.
“Overall, I think the team ran well today,” Plainwell coach Scott Evans said. “I was hoping for more (personal records) with the morning race, but it got warmer quicker than expected, so that limited the runners from having a better day.”
Paw Paw’s first two runners—Christopher Vogt (16:47) and Landon Lindsay (17:05)—finished second and third, respectively. Plainwell’s Trent Hansen (17:08) and Hiro Nguyen (17:11) were close behind with respective finishes or fourth and fifth.
Plainwell also had the 15th (Jack Sherer at 18:30), 18th (Joseph Hoffman at 18:59) and 19th (William Justice at 19:08) finishers to round out its scoring runners.
Paw Paw’s other three scoring runners placed eighth, 14th and 30th.
“Paw Paw ran well,” Evans said. “I think that ours guys let a couple of their guys go early and tried to catch up at the end, but just ran out of time.”
Still, Evans was pleased with what he saw from his team and believes the performance will be a solid building block for the rest of the season.
“I did see a lot of fight within the team, so I’m excited to see what happens as we get into the last part of September and the early part of October,” he said.
Allegan, meanwhile, got a sixth-place effort from Kellen Chalupa of 17:28 to lead the way.
Thomas Sigler was next for the Tigers, placing 12th at 18:24, followed by Loghan Murphy (25th at 19:26), Cooper Prentice (35th at 19:57) and Brandon Becker (47th at 21:16).
The Plainwell girls, meanwhile, cruised to first-place honors with 33 points. Allegan placed sixth with 124 points.
Mai Nguyen led the Trojans with a runner-up showing of 19:45. Fiona Ryan (fourth at 21:00), Molly Bruggink (fifth at 21:47), Gwen Todd (ninth at 22:499) and Brooke Carpenter (13th at 23:34) also scored for Plainwell.
Jayden VandenAkker was third for Allegan with a time of 20:56.
