With all the changes going on at Oaklawn Park, two things remained constant Saturday -- Lake Hamilton held its annual cross country invitational and Olivia Pielemeier won the event.
Pielemeier, a junior at Lake Hamilton, picked up her fourth win of the season with a time of 18:48.48 at the annual meet, the team's final prep before the 5A-South conference meet next Tuesday at Essex Golf Course and the Class 5A state meet on Nov. 5 at Oaklawn.
While some of her races in the past have been runaway wins -- winning the Wampus Cat Invitational (18:21.4) earlier this month by 1 minute, 21.5 seconds among them -- Pielemeier had a bit of competition Saturday in Bentonville's Madison Galindo (18:57.95) and Bentonville West's McKenna Terrell (19:06.20).
"I'm glad I had the competition," Pielemeier said. "I enjoy racing against people that push me. Madison's great runner, and she's definitely -- I enjoy running with her. So I was thankful. That helped me out a lot."
The weather Saturday was ideal for the runners with the temperature sitting in the low 60s with a slight wind for the varsity girls race.
"I couldn't have asked for better weather," Pielemeier said, while disappointed with her time. "Really it was just -- got into a mile and a half you have one of those races where you may not feel the best. Legs were a little locked up. Everything was adequately done -- I mean, rest, food. It just was one of those races, but other than that it was it was great."
Despite Pielemeier's win, the Lady Wolves finished fifth (143) as the team's next runner came in 19th. St. Joseph's Academy from Baton Rouge, La., took the win with 36 points, Bentonville was second with 52 and Bentonville West third with 102.
"We did well," said St. Joseph's head coach Mark LaHaye. "I mean, we pretty much ran according to our plan -- you know, tight little group. It's our first time out here, so we were really just kind of following the pack the first mile, tried to get back into the into the race by mile two and then just really push it home hard on mile three. That's kind of how it played out. It was pedal to the metal that whole -- especially at last half mile. I mean, you could see everybody closing hard, so that was really fun."
Hot Springs junior Layla Lammers was 82nd overall with a time of 23:16.23 as the school's only runner in the race. Junior Kelssi Davis led Bismarck's small contingent in 144th (26:44.99), and Magnet Cove was led by junior Brianna Ramthun in 157th (28:08.35).
Springdale Har-Ber took first and second in the varsity boys race with junior James Eslick taking the win in 15:58.09 while sophomore teammate Jonathan Mendez trailed by less than half a second (15:59.54) for second.
"It could always be better," Eslick said about his finish. "I always want to improve, but I feel pretty good about what I did today."
Eslick also praised Mendez.
"I'm really proud of him," he said. "He's only a sophomore, and he's doing amazing things -- things I couldn't have imagined when I was a sophomore. So I'm really proud to see him doing good."
Bentonville ended up with the win in the varsity boys race with 43 points while Lake Hamilton took second with 83, a single point ahead of Springdale Har-Ber. Jessieville finished 1oth (306), and Bismarck was 23rd (648).
"We had some PRs," said Bentonville head coach Michael Power. "We had some personal bests, and some of the younger guys stepped up. And I like to see that. We still have a little bit of work to do, I think in the last few weeks leading into state, but today was a great learning experience for the whole team."
Seniors Evan Armitage (16:15.06) and Zeke McCain (16:37.91) led the Wolves with finishes in third and seventh place overall. Jessieville senior Lawson Wideman was 31st (17:30.04), and Bismarck was led by senior Christian Leon in 119th (20:08.21).
Centerpoint had a small contingent at the race led by senior Luis Morales in 82nd (18:22.19), and senior Andreas Bradley (18:06.83) led Hot Springs.
In the junior girls race, Heber Springs eighth-grader Sarina Mays crossed the finish line in 13:52.27 with Maumelle eighth-grader Hallie Cook finishing just over three seconds behind her (13:55.38). Eighth-grader Rylee Burns (14:04.98) led Lake Hamilton with a fourth-place finish.
Bryant, which had 56 runners compete in the junior girls race, took the win with 38 points while Vilonia finished in second with 78. Heber Springs was in third with 83 points, and Lake Hamilton was fourth with 102. Bismarck (269) finished ninth, and Centerpoint (326) was 12th.
Freshman Addison Castleberry (16:03.16) finished 44th overall to lead Bismarck, freshman Araya Astalosh (14:08.42) led Centerpoint in sixth, and freshman Kennedi Scrivner (14:28:37) was 15th overall to lead Jessieville.
In the junior boys race, Heber Springs freshman Wade Harris earned the win in 11:46.21 with Bryant seventh-grader Walter Rauth 4.5 seconds behind in second. Freshman Chay Menzies (12:18.30) was seventh overall to lead Lake Hamilton.
Bryant, whose contingent of 47 runners, took the win with 43 points while Vilonia (72) and Conway (104) rounded out the top three. Lake Hamilton (135) finished fifth, Hot Springs (312) 11th, and Centerpoint (325) 12th.
Freshman Ethan Hale led the junior Trojans in 17th place with a time of 12:36.98, and Centerpoint eighth-grader Jareth Medina (13:13.54) was 37th overall to lead the team. Freshman Joseph Porter (12:31.02) led Bismarck.
Lake Hamilton head coach Brandon Smith said that it was nice to see things getting back to normal with the meet after over a year of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Things looked so much more back to normal for, you know, our cross country meet," he said. "(There was) a big crowd and, you know, a lot of people there supporting everybody. So I was really happy with that."
While Lake Hamilton did not take any team wins, Smith said that he felt his runners competed well against tough competition.
"For the Oaklawn course, I mean, it's just a tough course," he said. "It's gonna beat you up some, and I felt like time-wise we did really well today. Of course we've run on some courses this year that were that were accurate, but they're faster courses. I felt like when you take our ... course and what we did today, I'm very well pleased with what we did. So I really felt like for our kids, for the most part, had a pretty solid day representing us out there on the course."
