Grand Rapids Public Schools issued the following announcement on Oct 4.
The middle school group ran at the Allendale Falcon Invitational Saturday. Due to some trouble with bees on part of the course during earlier races the race distance was cut down from 2 miles to 2100 meters (about 5.25 laps on a 400m track or roughly 1.31 miles). The girls won the Scarlet (Big Schools) division scoring just 21 points to outdistance runner-up Allendale who scored 53 points.
The girls had 7 of the first 11 finishers in the Scarlet division, all earning medals for their finishes. Gwen VanSweden was the overall race winner running 7:36. Gwen Aupperlee placed 3rd in the Scarlet division running 8:28.0, narrowly edging Jana Kalumbula who placed 4th in 8:28.3. GRPS runners Addie DeRoo, Laura Gonzalez and Enna Wainer finished in a tight pack in 6th, 7th and 8th place running 8:44.6, 8:44.7 and 8:45.2. The team's final medalist was Sophia Roelofs who ran with Addie and Enna most of the way and ended up 11th in 8:53. Sophie Aupperlee was just two places out of a medal in 22nd running 9:35. Corina Willink finished 26th in 9:46. And the teams final three finishers were Daniela Atkins (30th place in 10:44), Rory VanderPloeg (32nd place in 10:06) and Amelia Ferenczi (11:35).
The boys team finished second (note scores are not correct on Athletic.net) with 42 points just 5 points behind Allendale. Five boys earned medals for their top 20 finishes in the Scarlet division. Kelton Hoover was first in for the team for the first time this year with a fourth place finish in 7:37. He was followed in by teammates Diego Barnaby (5th place, 7:42) and Wyatt Jacques (6th place, 7:56). Also earning medals were Joshua Kortenhoven (12th place, 8:25) and Lucas Bruno (16th place, 8:37) who continues to show big improvements this season. Ben VanderLeek was 24th in 9:02, Edwayt Garcia-Lopez was 30th in 9:12, Moise Nshizirungu was 32nd in 9:38 and Jack Morgan was 36th in 10:04 to round out the team's finishers.
Great job everyone. The race director indicated that they will be mailing out medals and team awards hopefully in the next week.
If you want to get an idea of how fast you ran today per mile, you can convert your time to seconds and then divide by 1.31 miles. For instance if you take Gwen's 7:36 it is 456 seconds. 456 seconds divided by 1.31 is 348 seconds or 5:48 per mile average. Or if you took Sophie Roelofs 8:53 it is 533 seconds/1.31 = 406 seconds or 6:46 per mile.
The team's next race will be next Saturday at the Portage Invitational.
Original source can be found here.
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