10/9/23: The Kewpie Kooldown: Kearney Invitational

This past weekend on October 7th, the Hickman Cross Country traveled up to Kearney, Missouri at Jesse James Park for the 2023 Kearney Invitational. At this meet Hickman had great races and performed amazingly as a team and individually.

On the girls' side, Hickman was only in one race as they only sent five runners for the girl's varsity race. Hickman had two runners in the top 50 in a race with 122 girls, their first runner was sophomore Zoe O’Laughlin who ran 22:21 and placed 35th, Hickman’s next top 50 finisher was fellow sophomore Natalie Keenoy who ran 22:48 and placed 40th. In the team competition, Hickman performed well placing 11th out of 16 teams.

In the boy’s varsity race that featured a huge restart, that caused a couple of Hickman athletes who were already into the opening stages of the race to turn around and do the start again, Hickman still had a great race. In a race with 177 boys Hickman placed four of their top seven in the top 50. Junior Max Hogan began the scoring as he ran 16:36 and placed fifth, next was senior Sean Keys who ran 17:12 and placed 19th, after Keys, there was junior Hank Cummings who ran 17:44 and placed 31st, Hickman's last top 50 runner was another junior Josh Brinkmann who ran 18 flat and placed 37th. Hickman also placed well as a team, as they placed 4th out of 21 teams.

In Hickman's last race of the day, the boy's JV race, Hickman had a great race. In a race with 238 boys, Hickman placed 6 runners in the top 50. Sophomore Collin Wise was their first finisher as he placed fifth and ran 18:33, following Wise was freshman Hogan Benter who ran 18:59 and placed tenth, next was another freshman Mac Roodhouse who ran 19:05 and placed 17th, after Roodhouse, there was sophomore Joe Waller who ran 19:29 and placed 37th, then there was senior Evan DiBlasi who ran 19:35 and placed 44th, then just one place after DiBlasi was freshman George Nichols, who ran 19:38 and placed 45th.

Hickman overall performed great at this meet even with the hilly terrain. This was for most Hickman athletes their last regular season meet as next week the Hickman team heads to their conference meet as they begin their road to the state meet.