place finisher was another Prescott runner, Amanda Auleciems, who finished with a time of 23:23.3. Similar to the boys’ results, Prescott had four female runners finish in the top 10 spots in terms of individual race times. Those include the two aforementioned results as well as Alee Warp’s sixth-place finish with a time of 24:33.3 and Abby Overland’s ninth-place finish with a time of 25:09.4.

“The meet overall was a little bit smaller than your average, maybe by a team or two,” Sachs said. “We have run against some of these teams before and we thought we would perform well. We’re not used to having people finish in first, second, or third in past years, so that’s been really exciting.”

According to Sachs, the team hasn’t been at full strength this year because multiple runners have had nagging injuries that have kept them sidelined for multiple meets.

“With the girls’ team we’ve dealt with some injuries,” Sachs said. “Those injuries have been to girls that have historically run varsity. It’s been good to see some of the other girls step up.”

One of the girls that stepped up and performed at the highest level is the aforementioned Johnson, the Prescott runner who took first in the girls 5K. It was the first individual win of Johnson’s young running career.

“I could have gone faster, it wasn’t my personal record, but the hills weren’t easy today,” Johnson said after the meet. “It feels really good (to win). Overall though, I ran well today. This changes my expectations going forward.”

The Prescott girls have improved at every meet this year. In the first meet of the year, they finished fourth, the next meet they finished third, after that they finished second and the growth culminated in a first-place finish at the only home meet of the year.

The second-place finish was at the Somerset Cross Country meet on Thursday, Sept. 9. At that meet Loucks finished in second, Ryan Zerneke finished in fourth, Auleciems finished in fourth, Warp finished fifth and Korfhage finished ninth. Overall, the Prescott boys took first as a team and the girls finished with the silver medal as a team.

The next cross country meet on the schedule is slated for Thursday, Sept. 23, at 4:30 p.m. at the Rolling Greens Golf Course in Durand.