It was a great day for the Ottawa Hills Cross Country team as we hosted the Ottawa Hills Invitational at Riverside Park on Friday, September 15.

Leading the way in the girl's race was Selma Anderson who not only won the race and ran a PR, but her time of 17:32 broke the school record set by Madison Ebright (17:41) in 2019. Congratulations Selma! Next in for the Bengals was Enna Wainer who recorded a PR for the third race in a row (20:06) to finish 30th. Reese Hansen ran most of the race with Enna until she got a cramp, but still ran a seasons best 20:33. Jana Kalumbula was 4th in for the team and ran a seasons best 21:59. Madeleine Hengeveld ran a big 58 second PR (22:09) running most of the race with Jana to finish in the fifth scoring position. Corena Willink ran 23:12 to drop 32 seconds off her PR from last season. And breaking into the teams top 7 for the first time was Rory VanderPloeg who continued to lower her PR (23:43), this time by 1:12. Rounding out the PRs for the day were Miranda Miheve (24:11), Kenzie Low (25:19) and Amelia Ferenczi (26:40).

For the boys, Liam Walters had another top 3 finish, this time setting a PR of 15:50. Nik Williams broke 17 minutes for the first time running 16:58. Kelton Hoover ran with Nik most of the way and was rewarded with a 30 second PR in 17:05. Wyatt Jacques PRed for the third meet in a row breaking 19 minutes in 18:45. Charlie Laughlin got oh so close to the 19 minute barrier, recording a PR of 19:03 to round out the teams top 5. Charlie was followed closely by Joshua Kortenhoven who bested his PR from last season running 19:08. Under 20 minutes for the first time were Sani Shema (19:33), Micah Rizkalla (19:34), Lucas Bruno (19:45) and Ben VanderLeek (19:50). The teams final two competitors were Alex Byrnes who ran almost a 2:00 PR, running 20:16 and Samuel Cervera who dropped his time 1:05 to finish in 21:38.

WELL DONE EVERYONE!

Meet Date
September 7, 2023

On Wednesday night the Ottawa Hills Cross Country team ran at the first OK Gold Jamboree at Riverside Park. The night was highlighted by a team win and two individual wins. 

The girls team took team honors in the girls race with 50 points edging Middleville Thornapple Kellogg who was second with 61 points and Forest Hills Eastern who was third with 74 points.  Selma Anderson won her second race of the year with a course best of 18:17 to lead all finishers by 25 seconds.  Enna Wainer took 6^th overall in a time of 20:36. Campbell Hansen ran almost 2 minutes faster than her first race to pick up 10^th place in 21:07 and her sister Reese Hansen was 13^th in 21:41.  Jana Kalumbula was 20^th and the teams final scorer running 22:19.  The trio of Corena Willink, Miranda Miheve and Rory VanderPloeg ran much of the race together with Corena (24:38) pulling Miranda (24:39) and Rory (24:55) to PRs for the night.  Kenzie Low also ran a PR of 26:14. The team’s final finisher was Marta Doublestein in 27:16.

For the boys, the night was highlighted by Liam Walters who got his first high school win besting the field of 107 runners in 16:17.  Nik Williams was second in for the team placing 13^th running 17:17.  Kelton Hoover dipped under his PR by 0.4 recording 17:35 to place 19^th.  Team scoring was rounded out by Diego Barnaby who ran a season’s best 18:54 (37^th place) and Wyatt Jacques who lowered his PR by 27 seconds running 19:17 (41^st place).  Charlie Laughlin was next in running 19:58 followed by Micah Rizkalla (20:08) and Sani Shema (20:18) who both recorded PRs.  Lucas Bruno was just off his PR, running 20:18 and Joshua Kortenhoven got in his first race of the season finishing in 20:22.  Ben VanderLeek (20:51) and Samuel Cervera (22:43) were the teams final two finishers with Samuel picking up a PR.

The team will next compete at the Ottawa Hills Invitational on September 15 at 5:00 PM at Riverside Park.