Eight SJO athletes compete at Richard Spring Invitational

By Fred Kroner

Eight St. Joseph-Ogden athletes competed in the Richard Spring Invitational on Saturday (Sept. 18), but they were scattered among three races so the state-ranked Spartans weren’t scored as a team in any of the races.

In the varsity race, featuring 63 full teams and 463 runners, SJ-O senior Ava Knap was 34^th with a 3-mile time of 18 minutes, and 7 seconds.

Teammates in that race were: Kailyn Ingram (159^th in 19:48.7), Taryn Sexton (248^th in 20:39.2) and Addie Allen (281^st in 20:58.7).

In the open race, the lone SJ-O representative was Kaytlyn Baker (180^th in 23:27.3). That race included 32 full teams and 438 runners.

Three Spartans participated in the freshmen-sophomore race, including ninth-grader Savanna Franzen, who was third in that division with a time of 18:29.1.

For the three girls’ races on Saturday, there were a total of 1,175 competitors. Franzen’s time was the 53^rd best for the day among all girls.

The other SJ-O athletes in the freshmen-sophomore race were Chloe Burkhalter (98^th in 21:36.5) and Chloe Allen (274^th in 27:57.2).

In all, there were 41 full teams and 301 runners in the freshmen-sophomore segment of the meet.

St. Joseph-Ogden, ranked eighth in the state in Class 1A by milesplit.com, returns to action on Saturday (Sept. 25) in the Spartan Classic.