VG/H boys cross country season comes to end

By Fred Kroner

Freshman Zach Ruwe was a near-miss in his efforts to qualify for the boys’ Class 1A cross-country sectional.

The Villa Grove/Heritage standout registered a 3-mile time of 17 minutes, 2.7 seconds on Saturday (Oct. 24) in the Decatur Regional meet at Hickory Point Golf Course.

Advancing from the regional to the sectionals were the first five teams as well as the top five runners not on qualifying teams.

Ruwe was the No. 6 runner not on a team heading to sectional and he was a scant seven-tenths of a second behind the fifth and final qualifier.

As a team VG/Heritage finished 10^th in the 14-school field. The top four teams were all state-ranked by milesplit.com.

Arthur-Lovington/Atwood-Hammond captured team honors (44 points) with St. Joseph-Ogden (50 points) finishing as the meet runner-up.

Other Blue Devils following Ruwe were: sophomore Rowan Denmark-Collins (69^th in 19:24.9), senior Daniel Olson (73^rd in 19:38.8), freshman Aidan Ashbrook (77^th in 20:03.7), freshman Lukas Carey (81^st in 20:45.4), freshman Logan Chapman (92^nd in 21:56.5) and freshman Austin Zoch (99^th in 24:55.1).

The regional meet was the final competition of the season for VG/Heritage.