The Grand County High School girls cross country team took first, and the boys team tied for first, with host Monticello at the Lloyd’s Lake Classic on Friday, Aug. 31, where a Lady Red Devil crossed the finish line in first, second and third place.
The Lady Red Devils were paced by sophomore Kylah Ricks, who finished the race at 19:52, almost a minute-and-a-half ahead of the entire field. Grand sophomore Anika Scherer took second at 21:15 and junior Jessie Anderson took third at 21:42.
“Kylah is just a great runner,” Grand cross country coach Randy Martin said. “She proves week after week how talented she is. She’s back healthy after some illness at the beginning of the season and she’s running great.”
The boys were also led by a Ricks as junior Malachi Ricks ran a 16:54 to take second out of 59 runners. A short time later, junior Evan Ellison took fourth at 17:22 and freshman Arthur Hawks took fifth at 17:23. Rounding out Grand’s score, junior Jameson Hawks took 16th at 19:10. Grand finished tied with Monticello in team points, but lost the tiebreaker, bringing home the second-place trophy.
Malachi Ricks and Jameson Hawks both shaved more than a minute off their times at the same race in prior seasons, which Martin said was a testament to how hard they have worked to become better runners both during the off-season program, and in practice during the season.
Martin said this race is the best gauge of the team’s strength so far this season.
“The first couple meets, it’s hard to gauge where everyone’s at with so many bigger schools running and so many more athletes,” he said. “To get to a smaller meet and compete with like schools and run like this — it’s exciting.”
Martin said the Red Devils’ home meet, the Red Rock Invitational, which was scheduled to take place Wednesday, Sept. 5, would be an even better barometer as region foes Emery and Richfield were both slated to compete.
Following the home meet, Grand is scheduled to run at the Brigham Young University (BYU) Autumn Classic.
“The BYU Autumn Classic is a 1-mile loop on a golf course,” Martin said. “The great thing about BYU is that after the high school meet, there’s a college meet with a lot of the state’s schools. We get to see runners we ran with in high school running collegiately.”
The BYU Autumn Classic is slated to take place on Saturday, Sept. 15, at 8 a.m., at the Eastbay Golf Course in Provo.
Grand girls place first, boys tie for first in Monticello
