by With the cross country postseason less than a month away, the Strongsville Invitational is a meet that many teams use to gauge just where they are.
The 50th version of the meet, held Saturday at Strongsville High School, was true to form, as the teams that were ranked highest in the state coaches poll came out on top.
Among the boys, Hudson, which is ranked second in Division I, dominated the field, scoring 68 points to 160 for runner-up Woodridge, which is ranked third in Division II. St. Ignatius was third with 167, followed closely by Lexington with 168. In all, 32 teams competed on the flat, fast course.
The girls winner was Avon, which is ranked fourth in Division I. Running in a field of 30 teams, the Eagles scored 105 points to 140 for Rocky River, which is ranked seventh. Despite holding out one of its top runners, fifth-ranked Perrysburg—the defending state champion—was third with 150, followed by No. 10 Solon with 157.
Avon, hoping to improve on its sixth-place finish in the state last year, was led by junior Kaitlyn Reese, who took the lead from the opening gun and cruised to victory with a time of 17:49.99. Strongsville’s Hannah Jicha was second in 18:01.54 with Woodridge senior Marissa Boone third with a time of 19:04.56.
“I’m trying out different tactics at different races, depending what race I’m at,” said Reese. “I’m trying to figure out what works best for me. This race I decided to lead early.”
Reese was backed by Carolina Reed in 16th, Ava Melott in 17th, Olivia Pajak in 34th and Juliana Stein in 37th.
“I was happy,” said Avon coach Justin Carroll. “It’s a different course with more twists and turns and pavement running, and also with the hot weather. But I think we did well. Cross country is always about place and always about effort. If you can get a PR it’s just a cherry on top. There were a lot of good teams here from all divisions. It shows us where we’re at, and I’m proud of how we did.”
The Hudson boys left little doubt of the outcome with three finishers among the top nine. Crew McDaniel finished in fifth, followed by Ryder Kessick in eighth and Bradley Schuster in ninth. Rounding out the top five were Benjamin Beucler in 22nd and George Barker in 24th. Not bad for a team that was missing one of its top five because of illness.
“I think we’re doing really well,” McDaniel said. “The team works really well together, but we’re also having fun, which is really important. Once we have fun, we are able to come out here and really push each other. Today we went out kind of hot. It was aggressive. I felt all my guys right behind me the whole race. Bradley was right in front of me or with me until about 800 left. But then I knew he was still pushing it to the end.”
The boys individual winner was Will Baker of Mount Gilead with a time of 15:28.14. He was followed by two runners from Lexington, Chance Basilone and Latrell Hughes, and Sam Hopp of Twinsburg.
