Southwest’s O’Dea nearly takes title, leads Roughriders to runner-up finish at UNK Meet

KEARNEY - At one of the larger meets in the State other than the official State Meet, Southwest’s Jake O’Dea nearly took down the entire field of Class D runners at the UNK Invite last Monday.

O’Dea finished a second back of the champion - Mullen’s Trevor Kuncl - and second in a field of nearly 220 runners made up of Class D competition.

O’Dea’s time of 17:46.8 was exactly one second back of Kuncl and his finish led the Roughriders to second place in the field of 36 teams at the meet. Teammates Bruce Teter (19:29) and Cole Barnett (20:10) finished 28th and 45th for the Roughriders while Carter Van Pelt was 102nd (21:54) and Austin Thompson was 106th (22:01).

Arapahoe’s Isaac Goshert also medaled, finishing ninth with a time of 18:25, leading the Warriors to a 14th place finish.

Cambridge’s Shane Horwart finished 24th leading the Trojans to a 17th place finish and Hi-Line’s Jordan Kranz was 27th to lead the Bulls.

In the girls’ race, Brenna Deterding of Cambridge finished 20th with a time of 22:31, leading the Trojans to a 18 place finish in the team race.

Hi-Line’s Whitney Dickau finished 33rd with a 23:38 and Payton Muegerl was 51st with a 24:41. The Bulls finished 13th out of the 26 teams.

Southwest’s Jesse Rolland led the Roughriders with a 66th place finish with a 25:43 while teammate Morgan Reeder was 108th with a 27:56.