By Marisa Dawson

The Bennington boys and girls cross country teams competed Friday evening, September 11, at the Fremont Twilight Invitational, with the girls capturing a runner-up team finish and the boys showing significant improvement from the previous week.

The Bennington girls finished second among 10 teams with 114 points, trailing only Papillion La Vista South, which finished with 45 points. Elkhorn South placed third with 121 points.

Selah Carson led the way for Bennington, finishing fourth individually in 19:24. Maddie Scott followed closely behind in 11th place with a time of 19:48.

Lucy Lampe placed 23rd in 20:41, while Mazlyn Cornett finished 26th in 20:54. Jaden Messerly and Nicole Huse rounded out Bennington’s top six, both finishing in 21:54.

Head coach Joe Schumm said the conditions were favorable and praised the team’s overall performance.

“Great conditions to run. The girls put in one of the best performances we’ve seen in quite a while,” Schumm said. “I think we’re starting to see how we fit in with competition in Class A and have raised our game.”

Schumm credited Carson and Scott for strong individual races, while also pointing to the improvement from Lampe and Cornett as an important factor in the team’s second-place finish.

“Selah and Maddie ran great races, Lucy and Mazlyn cut the gap between them and our top two by quite a bit,” he said.

The team effort extended beyond Bennington’s top four runners. Schumm noted that two freshmen competed in their first varsity race Friday, with their performances helping make the difference in the team standings.

“To be able to compete tonight took a full team effort,” Schumm said. “We had a couple of freshmen running their first varsity race and their race really made the difference. It was a great team effort all the way around.”

On the boys side, Bennington finished ninth with 242 points. Papillion La Vista South won the team competition with 57 points, followed by Elkhorn South with 82 and Holdrege with 83. Fremont finished fourth with 86 points.

Thomas Morgan led the Bennington boys, placing 24th individually with a time of 16:59.

The next four Bennington runners finished within just four seconds of one another. Carter Boyer and Parker Houston both ran 18:01 to place 59th and 60th, respectively, followed by Alex O’Connell at 18:04 and Keaton Striffler at 18:05. Brayden Kramer finished in 18:30, while Cael O’Brien ran in 18:36.

Schumm said the boys made notable progress compared with their previous meet, particularly in how closely the team’s first five runners finished.

“The boys showed great improvement from last week,” Schumm said. “We cut down the gap between our first five runners by almost a minute and the times a much closer to where we thought they could be.”

Morgan provided a solid lead for the team, while the tight grouping behind him gave Bennington a stronger team race.

“Thomas ran a solid race, and the next four runners packed together tight and just kept moving forward the whole race,” Schumm said.

While Schumm said the boys still have room to improve, Friday’s performance provided reason for optimism.

“There’s more improvement to make, but we are excited at where they are right now,” he said.