Cuba High School cross country competed in the Sept. 22 Belle Cross Country Invitational and in the Sept. 26 Gans Creek Invitational in Columbia. Cuba Middle School cross country team also competed in Belle. Both meets are detailed below.

CMS and CHS teams are scheduled to run locally Sept. 29 in the St. James Invitational, which will be detailed in next week’s edition. The Wildcats will have a week off before competing in the Oct. 6 Hermann Invitational Cross Country Meet.

Sept. 22 Belle Cross Country Invitational

Cuba High School and Middle School cross country teams returned to action to compete in the Belle Cross Country Invitational.

Ella Basham, CHS’ lone girls runner this fall, continued her strong junior campaign by running a personal best 22:57 to finish in fifth place out of 47 runners in the girls varsity race.

CMS Seventh grader Karter Peters ran a personal best 12:59 time in the middle school boys two mile race to earn 12th place out of 100 competitors. Jensen Myers was the only other CMS boys runner, earning 62nd with a 15:28 time.

CHS freshmen Tristan Cross, Ryan Ray, Matthew Herwig and Ayden Mabe, junior Jamison Scott and senior Jackson Herwig competed in the boys varsity race. Cross was the first Wildcat to cross the finish line, earning 35th place with a 21:46 time. Ray finished in 22:19 to earn 41st place and Scott took 50th with 23:15 time. Jackson Herwig completed the race in 24:21 to earn 59th, Matthew Herwig took 67th with a 26:04 finish and Ayden Mabe earned 72nd with a 29:45 time. Mabe shaved more than two and a half minutes off his 32.23 time five days prior in the Steelville Invitational. 

CMS seventh graders Olivia Copeland and Naomi White and eighth graders Lillian Yates and Lily Craig competed in the girls middle school two mile race. Copeland was Cuba’s first runner to complete the race, finishing in 16:39 to take 33rd place. Yates ran the race in 17:14 to earn 46th, White took 53rd with a 17:56 time and Craig finished in 61st with a 19:23 time.

Sept. 26 Gans Creek Invitational

Cuba High School’s varsity cross country runners competed against hundreds of the state’s fastest runners in the Gans Creek Invitational.

Basham represented the Lady Wildcats well, beating her personal best time from the Belle Meet by nearly 20 seconds. She crossed the finish line in 22:38, earning 105th place.

Cross was once again the first Wildcat to finish, taking 211th with a 21:49.70 time. Ray earned 236th with a 22:34.60 time and Brody Bayless was less than two seconds behind him, finishing in 22:36:40 to take 237th.

Zaylen Kammer crossed the finish line in 22:51.20, earning 245th place. Jackson Herwig took 251st with a 23:21.20 time and Matthew Herwig finished in 255th place with a 23:36.20 time. Mabe improved on his previous time, earning 282nd with a 29:28.50 time.