Three Owls medal at Clinton Invitational

Junior Lindie Arends dropped her course time 16 seconds while taking the No. 2 spot for the Lady Owls during the Clinton Invitational. Correction: The runner in Friday's article on Marshall cross country should have been identified as junior Kylie Heying. The Marshall Democrat-News regrets the error. [Click to enlarge]

CLINTON -- Seniors Alex Jones and Madison Marshman and sophomore Matt Bledsoe each won medals Saturday for the Marshall cross country team at the Clinton Invitational.

Jones (18:13) finished sixth in a field of 43 runners for his seventh straight medal this season, leading the Owls to fourth place among eight schools. Bledsoe (18:59) dropped his time on the course by a full minute from a year ago to come in 19th, the second time he's been honored in the last three meets.

Sophomore Phillip Perkins (19:21) placed 21st, senior Grant Pfizenmaier (19:39) was 25th and sophomore Alex Jenkins (19:57) came in 32nd -- showing the most improvement on the course among the Marshall boys, by 1:36.

Harrisonville freshman Maksim Korolov (17:36) won the meet by nearly 13 seconds over Clinton junior Matt Hedrick, the MHS Invitational runner up. Smith-Cotton put runners in the third through fifth spots on the way to the team title.

Sierra Jenkins, the gum-chewing freshman phenom from Clinton, had her five-race win streak -- which included the Marshall meet -- snapped with a second-place finish to junior Elizabeth Keaveny (19:41) from St. Teresa's of Kansas City. That victory was the deciding factor which gave the Stars the nod for the team trophy after winding up in a tie with Blue Springs at 40 points.

Marshman (20:43) was a second faster than last year during a 10th-place run in the field of 57 entries. The Lady Owls, who have been trying to overcome a dose of illness, were hurt in the points standings when senior Crystal Kearney -- a medalist in five of the first six meets -- had to drop out.

Junior Lindie Arends (22:54) improved 16 seconds to place 33rd and senior Chelsea Norman (23:20) was 39th. The rest of Marshall's scoring was provided by junior Kylie Heying (25:59) and sophomore Kayla Henderson (26:36) in 53rd and 55th place, respectively.

Nine of the 10 Owls who entered the junior varsity boys' race were in the top third of 76 runners -- with freshman Henry Yeagle (19:47) setting a personal record and junior Jacob Diehm (19:51) and senior Jake Schulenberg (20:10) lowered their course times while finishing 2-3-4, sophomore Brian McClellan (20:20) on their heels in sixth.

Marshall is coming down the stretch of the season, with the NCMC Championships directly ahead of it Saturday at Mexico.