The Sidney Cross Country teams competed at Piqua on Saturday at the MVL Championships. It was an outstanding day of competition with a nice cool sunny morning.


The middle school boys started the racing off at 9am with 114 total boys in the race. Garrett Gold came in with the 9th best overall time amongst his peers prior to today, but finished 4th overall, running a 7 second PR (11:52). Charles Harter moved up one spot from his predicted finish and got 10th (12:13). Bently Ludwig battled an ankle injury to finish 50th overall (14:07) and third for the team. As impressive as the first three were, the back half did some big moving. Kaydin Wesbecher ran a 10 second PR (14:31) and went from a predicted finish of 73rd to 58th. Tyce Swiger ran a 44 second PR (15:45) and went from 101st predicted finish to 78th. Finally Grayson Tucker ran a 71 second PR (15:47) and went from 107th to 80th overall. The boys finished 6th overall in the 10 team league, the best Sidney finish since 2021


The middle school girls continued the great running by finishing 5th overall, arguably their best MVL championship since 2020. Team members had to step up as the normal #2 runner, Jaylynn Tucker, was out sick. Chloe Dunham was ranked 27th among her peers prior to the race, and ran a 48 second PR (13:46) and finished 16th overall in the most competitive girls MVL race in the 9 years of the league. Annslie Harter ran a 24 second PR (14:46) and moved up 3 spots from her predicted finish. Isabella Barnes ran a 45 second PR (14:51) and went from 47th to 36th on her finish. Eva Blackford ran a season best time of 15:34 and moved up 7 spots and finished 43rd overall. With Jaylynn being out, Aliana Ward stepped up big, finishing 5th for the team (final scoring spot) and went from a predicted finish of 75th to 60th overall running a 75 second PR (17:05). Also running a 75 second PR in her last middle school race was Annabelle Johnson (18:08) finishing 65th (up from 78th). Rounding out the team was Layla Browner finishing 73rd (20:50).

The middle school season is complete, except Garrett Gold and Charles Harter will compete at the State Middle School Championships next Sunday the 25th at Fortress Obetz at 12:55pm.


The high school boys finished 7th overall, their best MVL Championships since 2023. Leading the way once again was Jeremiah Taylor, finishing 14th overall which gets him 2nd team all league honors. His 8 second PR (17:50) moved him up from his predicted finish of 17th. Marlon Tucker finished 2nd on the team and 61st overall with a 7 second PR (19:26) and moved up 16 spots from his predicted finish. Anderson Blackford (19:49) broke 20 minutes from the first time, running a 21 second PR to finish in 73rd place, up 13 spots. Right behind him was Dakota Porter with a 20:04. Finishing 5th on the team with a 5 second PR was Carter Shurts (20:19). Finally, running a season best time was Ashton Krabill (22:39). 150 total runners competed on the boys side.


Ending the day was the high school girls with 109 total runners competing. Despite the team’s best effort to gain a 5th runner so we could score as a team, we were only able to run 4 this year at the league meet. Emma Schmiesing once again led the girls finishing in 83rd place (26:47). New to cross country this year, our next three girls ran their best races of their young careers. Adrianna Barrett dropped almost 3 minutes to run a PR (27:19) and finish in 86th place. Right behind her was Ruth Atelus with over a 2 minute PR (28:10, 89th place) and Nevaeh Watson also with over a 2 minutes PR (28:21, 90th place). All three girls were predicted coming into the race to finish past 100th place.


The high school athletes move on to the Division 2 southwest district meet at the Elvin R. King Course on the campus of Cedarville University next Saturday. Girls will run at 10am and the boys at 10:45.