By Chuck Reherman
Sports Editor
FAYETTEVILLE, AR – Another strong showing.
Yukon’s Millerette cross country team competed in their largest meet of the season and came away with a third place overall finish at the annual Chile Pepper Run in Fayetteville, AR.
The Millerettes finished third overall out of 45 teams from Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri. There were also 41 other schools that had runners, but not a full team.
YHS had 101 points placing behind Lucas Lovejoy High School (71) and Greenwood, AR. (86) High School.
The Millerettes also saw a school record fall as harper Barlow ran the 5K distance in the fastest time for a Millerette runner.
YHS had one runner place in the top 10 and another in the top 15 that led the team to their third place finish.
“We had a great time,” Millerette head coach Rod Zimmerman said. “This is the second time we have taken the girls out there and they seem to have a good time doing it and look forward to it.
“It is different from most meets getting to travel and stay the night somewhere before they run,” he said. “It’s also the biggest meet we go to, there were 441 girls on the start line for that race a normal meet never has close to that. It’s a hilly course compared to what we normally see but nowhere near what it could be like around Fayetteville.
“Our girls ran great, we took 14 out there and all but two ran career PR’s and all of them ran season Pr’s.
“Our big story is Harper set a new school record and is the first Yukon girl under 19 minutes. We were just talking right before we left the high school about how I felt she was fixing to go faster than she had at this point, she ran a really good race.”
Barlow ran the course in 18 minutes and 54.2 seconds to place second. She was just a second behind the winner, Carole Werner of Greenwood. Only two runners finished the course in under 19 minutes.
Kiera Blumhof finished 12th in 20:10.6, Nora England-Jones was 29th in 20:40.8 and Kailan Parks 30th in 20:45.3.
Emily Schneider ran 32nd in 20:48.7 to round out the scoring.
Jacey Henson was 83rd in 21:54.6, Emma Rouner 108th in 22:28.2, to rounds out the top seven.
“Keira ran her second fastest time of the season and wasn’t far off of her fastest,” Zimmerman said. “Nora ran her fastest time of the season and was really close to her PR. Kailan, Emily, and Jacey all three ran new PR’s and Emma ran her fastest time this season to round out the varsity.
The Millerettes will compete in the OBU Challenge in Shawnee at the Gordon Cooper Tech Center in Shawnee on Thursday. The meet begins at 6:10 p.m.
