Charger cross country stalwarts Kate Crawford and Noah Nelson each were runner up in their respective races in the WCAC meet held at Lake Panorama yesterday. Crawford finished second to Ella Waddle of Panorama in a time of 19:05.75, just over a minuted behind the Panther runner. Crawford finished nearly a minute and a half ahead of the third place runner, Payton Beckman of Panorama.

Nelson led for much of the race before Sean McDermott of Madrid pulled away from the Charger ace to claim first place. Nelson ran the 5K course in 16:27.58, thirty seconds behind McDermott. Nelson ran the course six seconds faster than the third place runner, Louden Foster of West Central Valley.

The Panorama girls claimed the team title with 40 points, four points ahead of runner up Earlham. ACGC finished in the third spot with 94 points. Charger runners other than Crawford who figured in the scoring and their places included: Rylee Sloss, 21st, 21:51.94; Alyson Embleton, 24th, 22:04.33; Keely Vasey, 29th, 22:11.32; and Aubrey Chmelar, 33rd, 22:25.02.

Charger runners who did not figure in the scoring included: Kendra Campbell, 43rd, 22:45.21;

Kennedy Young, 58th, 23:41.82; Reagan Rumelhart, 61st, 23:52.19; Kenzie Reinhart, 64th, 24:12.33; Belle Policky, 65th, 24:16.04; Emma Vogl, 81st, 25:35.83; Paxton Schneider, 88th, 27:23.93. There were a total of 104 runners in the girls' event.

The Charger boys finished fifth (with 117 points) out of the twelve teams in the WCAC. Madrid won the meet with 38 points, followed by Des Moines Christian with 76. In addition to Nelson, the following boys figured in the scoring for ACGC: Clay Billheimer, 11th, 16:50.74; Ben Young, 27th, 17:44.20; Miles Kading, 38th, 18:01.01; and Blaine Beeler, 39th, 18:02.42.

Eli Kading finished just out of the money, finishing just over a second behind Beeler in 40th place in 8:03.64. Other Charger runners and their times were Donnie Swanson, 44th, 18:15.52; Zander Kenyon, 60th, 18:45.15; Easton Benson, 61st, 18:55.54; Noah Sargent, 63rd, 19:05.35; Nash Ayers, 85th, 20:07.94; Matt Hanner, 99th, 20:27.58; Christian Nolte, 104th, 20:57.64; and Lane Sheeder, 109th, 21:17.25. There were 141 boys who participated.

The district meet, also known as the state qualifier, will be held one week from today, Thursday, October 18 on the Charger home course. The girls' meet will begin at 4 PM with the boys' meet to follow. Go Chargers!

Boys' Team Scoring Girls' Team Scoring

Madrid 38 Panora 40

DMC 76 Earlham 44

Earlham 95 ACGC 94

Ogden 109 Pl'ville 120

ACGC 117 Madrid 140

W Acad 128 Ogden 154

VMeter 221 W-G 159

WCV 237 VMeter 209

W-G 257 WAcad 279

Panora 259

I35 295

Pl'ville 340