Blue Devil cross country competes at Cumberland Invitational

The Villa Grove girls placed sixth and the Blue Devil boys were 12^th on Saturday (Oct. 9) in the Cumberland Invitational.

Junior Emma Buesing was the first Villa Grove finisher in the girls’ race. She ran 29^th with a 3-mile time of 24 minutes, 7.27 seconds.

Teammates trailing her were freshman Scarlett Howard (43^rd in 25:46.29), junior Madison Logan (45^th in 25:58.18), junior Kyleigh Price (48^th in 26:22.68) and senior Hailey Stutz (58^th in 27:25.14).

Marshall was the meet champion (25 points). Benton was the runner-up (57). Villa Grove had a team composite of 122.

Kurt Zimmerman was the front-runner for the Blue Devils in the boys’ race.

The freshman took 13^th in 17:36.86.

Other Villa Grove participants were freshman Chase White (68^th in 20:12.31), senior Caleb Wiessing (86^th in 21:21.00), sophomore Austin Zoch (100^th in 22:21.66), freshman Blake Davis (124^th in 24:59.81) and freshman Andrew Fonner (127^th in 26:38.26).

On Tuesday (Oct. 5), Zimmerman was the runner-up in a four-school meet at Sullivan.

His 3-mile time was 17:56.

White finished 13^th in 19:53. Other teammates in the chase were Wiessing (18^th in 20:54), Zoch (28^th in 23:49), Davis (29^th in 24:23) and Fonner (30^th in 24:53).

Cerro Gordo/Bement captured team accolades with 37 points. Arthur-Lovington/Atwood-Hammond was second (48 points), followed by Sullivan (56) and Villa Grove (69).

In the girls’ race, Villa Grove was the only school to field a full team and ended with a team composite of 15 points.

Buesing was the individual runner-up, clocking a 22:05.

Stutz was sixth in 24:05 and was followed by Howard (eighth in 24:12), Price (ninth in 24:26), Logan (10^th in 24:28) and Jobeth Crafton (12^th in 24:34).

The Blue Devils return to action on Tuesday (Oct. 12) at Paxton-Buckley-Loda.