It was the final conference race of the season on Wednesday, and the Rangers did their best to show the conference what they were made of. Unfortunately for the girls team, it fell one spot from their past placements in the conference race. 

The boys and girls lined up against all of the conference opponents, Grand Rapids Christian, Lowell, East Grand Rapids, Forest Hills Northern, Byron Center, Northview, and Greenville. The boys finished in fourth place behind EGR. Senior Sam Yeager had an amazing race, finishing in third overall. He came eight seconds behind second and first place with a time of 16:09.25. This time, the second-fastest runner for the Rangers was sophomore Parker Ludwig. He ran a time of 16:51.67, increasing his time by over ten seconds since the last conference race. He came in 14th overall, and in 18th was Ethan Krampe. The boys have placed fourth in all but one of the conference races in which they placed third. 

“It was a good race for some people who got PR’s,” Ethan said. “We had some key injuries that took out a few of our top runners.”

On the girls side, the race did not go as planned. Excluding the race on Wednesday, they have placed third in all of the conference races. Central lost the battle against Northern for the first time this year. On the bright side, sophomore Mia Bateson placed second overall, which was three places higher than the last conference meet. The second-highest finisher for Central was sophomore Peyton Ludwig, who came in ninth place. Senior Grace Fitzgerald and freshman Gwen Lamport finished right next to each other in the overall standings but eight seconds apart in the time standings. They both finished in under 21 minutes. With things getting more serious, they look to make sure they are all healthy and ready to go for their next race.

The cross country team will face off in the regional race at Allendale on Saturday, October 30, with hopes of qualifying runners to further rounds.