RIDGWAY — The Clearfield High School boy’s and girl’s cross country teams competed at the Ridgway Invitational on Saturday. Ridgway is also the site of the District 9 championships on October 30.
The top finisher for the girls was junior Juliana Mellgard, who placed 18th with a time of 22:17. The first place girl overall was freshman Kennedy Weisner from Elk County Catholic who ran a 19:42.
Clearfield head coach John Jacob commented on his girl’s dip in performance, “On the girl’s side we had a slight let down in performance. The girls were 30 seconds to a minute slower than their best times. We had a huge step in our training this week in preperation for our two championship meets (Mountain League and District 9). As the coach, I will take the blame for the slow times because of the lack of rest. I know the girls will take this as a learning experience and move forward to Tuesday’s meet against Tyrone.”
Girl’s results:
1 Kennedy Weisner 9 Elk County Catholic 6:20.7 19:42.76 1
18 Juliana Mellgard 11 Clearfield Area 7:10.6 22:17.58 11
27 Johanna Ryan 12 Clearfield Area 7:23.7 22:58.48 18
40 Abigail Jury 10 Clearfield Area 7:54.4 24:33.64 26
47 Rebecca Ward 11 Clearfield Area 8:01.6 24:56.21 31
54 Morgen Turner 10 Clearfield Area 8:26.1 26:12.34 34
The top finisher on the boy’s side was Adam Jury, who placed 36th. Due to a timing error, official times weren’t available for the boy’s race.
Despite no official times, coach Jacob said that the boys performed very well, “…according to personal timing the boys had a successful day against our district competition. Adam (Jury), Alec (Coble) and Jesse (Neyman) still have some time to prepare before our district meet. The goal of qualifying for districts is very obtainable but will take their best performance of the year. Freshman Kyle Thompson had another successful meet performing near his season best against some tough competition. Caleb Bass had a successful meet placing 4th on the team for the second meet in a row.”
Boy’s results:
1 Harley Thompson 12 Elk County Catholic
36 Adam Jury 12 Clearfield Area
64 Caleb Bass 12 Clearfield Area
76 Vincent Kovach 10 Clearfield Area
103 Kyle Thompson 9 Clearfield Area
107 Matthew Bell 9 Clearfield Area