SIOUX FALLS – A pair of Aberdeen Central sophomores used strong finishes to grab spots among the top 25 runners during the Class AA portion of the State Cross Country Meet Saturday afternoon at Yankton Trail Park.

Joe Perkins finished 21st in the boys’ race and Juna Ramey finished 25th in the girls’ race during the meet.

Perkins was the early leader in his race after he bolted from the starting line to begin the event. However, that lead ended up to be short lived.

“Originally the strategy was kind of to stick within the first 12 people-range, but I kind of fell off after the start and I kind of fell back to where my teammate was,” Perkins said. “Then I kind of worked back up from there.”

Perkins found himself in about 35th position before he began to make his second move of the race. He picked off 14 runners down the stretch to end up in his final position in a time of 16:23.95.

Looking back at how the race transpired, Perkins realized his start was a bit too fast, but his finish was solid.

“I knew I got a little faster than I wanted to,” Perkins said, “but I also knew that I needed to kind of settle myself down and get into a position where I could race at the end.”

Ramey also got stronger as the girls’ race wore on and picked up the pace when she realized she was in danger of missing the podium.

“When someone from a different team yelled out 31^st or something, and I was like ‘Oh shoot I’m going to lose my spot,’ so I started getting ahead of people,” Ramey said. “I was like, I’ve been working for this all year, I’ve got to do this.”

Ramey finished strong, but was initially disappointed when she thought she had failed to secure a place on the podium.

“I started crying because I thought I was 26^th,” Ramey said, who ran a time of 19:38.24.

The Golden Eagles finished fourth as a team in the boys’ team points. While Central usually talks about finishing in the top three at conference and top five at state, boys’ coach Greg Murley has a different take.

“I guess my mantra is we’re going to compete as hard as we can and we’re going to see what happens,” Murley said.

Other Central runners included 37, Carson Urlacher (16:43.07), 39, David VanVeen (16:46.48), 43, Tate DeVries (16:53.38), 54, Sam Schultz (17:10.46), 56, Christian Wells (17:11.01), and 57, Esten Foss (17:13.31.)

Murley noted that this year’s squad feature a group of runners that were fun to be around and very well mannered.

“Someone said you need to tell them run like you stole something,” Murley said, “well, I’m like none of these kids would steal something, so they don’t know what that feeling is.”

The Eagles had a solid season that included a runner-up finish at the Eastern South Dakota Conference Meet.

“They’re just great kids,” Murley said, “and I’m pretty proud of the season we had.”

The Central girls took 11th in team points with a new group of runners at state.

“The team that we had last year at the state line is a lot different than the team that we have this year at the state line,” said Golden Eagles girls’ coach Eric Pedersen. “We finished 12^th last year as a team so for us finishing 11^th with a new team, a lot of really young kids, we see it as an improvement. We see it as something that we can build off of going forward.”

Other Central runners included 35, Morgan VanVeen (20:08.24), 74, Alyssa Novstrup (21:18.39), 75, Khloe Cochran (21:18.73), 92, Alivia Burgard (21:59.96), 93, Alexis Ketterling (22:00.27), 111, Allison Brenner (22:53.85).

“Overall impressions, I think throughout the season I feel like we made a lot of really, really, strong improvements,” Pedersen.

Sioux Falls Lincoln won the boys’ team title while Brandon Valley won the girls’ team crown.

Pierre’s Jared Lutmer won the boys’ individual championship in a time of 15:15.42. He said he didn’t have much of a pre-race strategy.

“I kind of just like to play the race out,” Lutmer said. “I don’t really have an exact to the measure of a game plan, I just go out and see where everyone’s at and just take it from there.”

The senior who will run at SDSU next year, said he wasn’t sure where the competition was at behind him.

“I think it’s better when you don’t really know where people are at,” Lutmer said, “because it keeps you on your toes and it keeps pushing you to go faster.”

Libby Castelli of O’Gorman won the girls’ individual state title, opening up a big lead on the way to the victory.

“At the beginning they were kind of with me, but I could slowly tell that they were kind falling back,” Castelli said, “and I just tried to keep the pace up throughout the race.”

The junior who won the 1,600-meter state title in track and field last spring, was happy to add a state title in a different sport.

“I think it’s really exciting to win,” Castelli said. “It’s my first cross country state championship, so to win it feels really good.”

To see complete meet results, click on the following link:

https://results.dakotatiming.com/display.html?event_id=1368