With a team score of 36 and three individuals finishing among the top 10 overall, the River Ridge girls’ cross country team took top honors at last Tuesday’s Goat Hill Classic for the second year in a row.

The Lady Wolves finished 11 points ahead of host North Crawford, 34 points ahead of Kickapoo/La Farge and 35 points ahead of Wauzeka-Steuben, as all five scoring individuals finished among the top 20 overall.

Finishing second overall was River Ridge senior Leah Patterson, whose time of 22:33.0 was 17 seconds behind the winning time of North Crawford junior Ingrid Carstens.

River Ridge sophomore Lindsay Burmeister was close behind in fourth (23:05.6), while senior teammate McKenzie Taylor was sixth (24:09.6).

“Leah and Lindsay have now medaled in all four meets and have been running as well as I have ever seen them run,” said River Ridge cross country coach Shane Sperle. “McKenzie had by far her best race of the season…to see her run this well this early is a very good sign for us.”

Rounding out River Ridge’s top five scorers were junior Eden Thornton in 14th (26:21.7) and senior Yoselin Bautista in 16th (27:17.3).

“I am very proud of the effort all the athletes made on a demanding course,” said coach Sperle. “The efforts and times put on this type of course is very encouraging for what they will be able to do come October at the conference meet.”

The River Ridge boys, who had three runners compete, did not score as a team, but saw freshman Brooks Osterhaus finish 19th overall (23:58.9), junior Bryce Mason 20th (24:14.6) and junior Adam Williams 25th (25:42.4).

North Crawford senior Sam Knoble had the winning time of 18:23.4, finishing more than one minute and 16 seconds faster than his closest competitor.

On the following Thursday night, coach Sperle’s squad participated in the Greg Bell Memorial Night Meet held in Boscobel, where they River Ridge girls finished 14th of 23 competing teams.

Patterson led the Lady Timberwolves with her time of 21:32.0 to finish 38th of 168 total runners. Burmeister was 40th overall (21:34.5), followed by Taylor in 70th (23:03.1), Thornton in 104th (24:42.8) and West in 127th (25:59.2).

The River Ridge boys had two runners competing, as Mason finished 143rd of 157 runners with a time of 22:54.1, while Adam Williams was 151st (24:32.0).