County rivals Saint Jo and Forestburg both ran at a big meet in Ponder on Wednesday in both team’s final meet before district next week.

While neither program brought a full team of boys or girls to compete at the varsity level, the runners did hold their own in a meet full of mostly bigger schools and more than 200 runners at the high school level.

Saint Jo’s Logan Morman had the highest finish of the day in eighth place running with a time of 17:24. The Panthers other runners saw Kassidy Pitman finish 30th with a time of 15:51 in the girls race while Grant Stiteler finished 96th with a time of 25:12. Coach Taylor Klement liked how her runners competed against not only challenging competition, but the course itself.

“I was very impressed with how well we ran,” Klement said. “The conditions were tough with the heat and wind. The overall course is very spread out with no shade so I was hoping we would respond well because it’s very similar to our district course.”
Saint Jo also was one of the smallest schools, but Klement felt her athletes responded to the challenge.

“I had a couple athletes set career bests and several others stayed consistent with their times so I’m extremely positive going into next week,” said Klement.

Read the full story in the weekend edition of The Bowie News.