X-Country eats up home cooking

For its homecoming week, the Saratoga Middle/High School (SMHS) cross country team came home to host cross country teams from around the region during the Shana Ward Invitational, which was held Friday at the Saratoga Hot Springs Resort.

The event featured about 425 athletes and took place Friday afternoon at the resort's golf course. Because of the large number of attendees from various schools and grade levels, the event was broken up over the course of the afternoon Friday.

Possibly because of home track advantage, two SMHS middle school boys took the top two spots in the 3-kilometer run. Grant Bartlett finished the course in 11:55.05, a first-place finish, and Grady Bartlett came in just over a second later at 11:56.34, good for second place in the run.

Kelton Johnson rounded out Saratoga's top 20 finishers in the junior high boys' class, with 14th place, 13:10.52 second time in the race.

Overall, the boys middle school team finished in 5th place for team standings.

Makenna King of Saratoga Middle School, continued her streak of high-placed finishes ending her race in 12th place among middle school girls, with a time of 14:02.58. Finishing 36th in a field of 85, Marilee Williams ran the 3K in 15:54.18.

On the high school side, Saratoga High School finished in 4th place in the 5K run, thanks to a 19th place finish by Joey Gonzalez, who did the run in 18:59.43. Gavin Bartlett earned 21st place with his time of 19:18.81. Jarom Herring took 26th, Aaron Detterer landed 29th and Gage Bartlett crossed the line in 33rd place.

Overall, the Saratoga High School boys finished in 4th place as a team among the 58 runners competing in the event.

Ashlynn Johnson, the only girl from Saratoga High School who competed, ran the 5k in 22:33.52, good for 12th place.

The SMHS cross country team will next compete Friday at the Wheatland Invitational in Wheatland.