By RYAN WALKER
The Bluffton girls’ cross country team finished ninth of 11 at the Bellmont Invite Wednesday. The top finisher for the Tigers was Annika Linderwell, finishing 38th with a time of 25:43.9. Right behind her was Gabrielle VanCamp in 39th (25:54.2). In 45th was Amarah Robles (26:27.1), followed by Dakota Lee in 46th (26:27.1). In 53rd was Alydia Bertsch (27:07.2)
Despite the ninth-place finish, VanCamp, Robles, and Lee beat their personal record and continue to show growth in their young careers.
Third-year head coach Michael Vanderkolk sees the improvement in each race and practice, urging them to run with one another and get their best time possible.
“Today went awesome,” he said. “Just every single day, they show up, and they impress us more and more,” he said. “We think the big thing about it is with them running together, all five of the girls just kind of filed in 1-2-3-4-5. Just having them pushing each other during practices during the races is just seeing growth both individually and as a whole.”
The five continue to improve with each step, and Vanderkolk believes they will continue that for the rest of the season. By year’s end, Vanderkolk’s team could be in a good position to compete at the end of the year if they improve each race with a new personal record.
“It’s always nice getting it this early and just kind of seeing where they can go to get the bar lowered and keep lowering and lowering that bar (for time) and see what we can do,” he said.
Each school’s cross-country course can vary in many different ways. The terrain, the route of the course, and even the weather each day can affect a runner’s time. However, the sectional this year for Bluffton will be at Bellmont and will make this second meet’s time a marker for the end of the year. The team can build an advantage for improvement shooting for a better time at the post-season meet.
“It’ll be a lot more apples to apples comparing it on the same course,” Vanderkolk said. “I love coming here because it gives us that kind of understanding of what it’s going to take to compete at Bellmont.”
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