Hillsboro High School cross-country coach Kodi Panzer was already excited about the team she’d have for the 2019 season last year. 

She had good reason to, and she witnessed a great team Thursday in the Central Kansas League meet at Larned. 

The Trojan girls grabbed a third-place finish out of eight league schools, scoring 63 points. 

  Pratt ran away with the title with 29 points. 

Emersyn Funk remains one to watch Saturday during regionals at Hutchinson’s Prairie Ridge Cross-Country Park, hosted by Buhler High School. 

Funk finished fourth in 22:41. 

Freshman Ainsley Duell also medaled, running a 24:42 for 12th place. 

Duell’s fellow freshman teammate, Moriah Jost, medaled with a 19th-place finish in 25:52. 

Lone senior Millie Sechrist was 28th in 28:10, and Karley Loewen closed out Hillsboro’s varsity girl’s finishers at 32nd in 29:31. 

With only three runners for the varsity boys and two for the junior varsity, Hillsboro was short of competitors to obtain a team score. 

Hillsboro still managed to secure two varsity medals, though, with Caleb Diener finishing 15th out of 56 runners in 19:05, and Tristan Reed five places, and 26 seconds behind. 

Jason Latham finished the race at 56th at 26:35.

In the junior varsity race, Josh Diener was 32nd in 24:03, and Nathan Lopez was 39th at 24:49. 

Panzer will get another feather in her hat next year with the addition of eighth graders Trudy Hein, and Levi Allen. 

Hein finished eighth out 20 runners in 15:50. 

Allen closed out the most dominating junior high career any Hillsboro runner has had, unbeaten, beating Smoky Valley runner-up Samuel Peterson by 1:34. 

Qualifying tickets for the Class 2-1A state meet November 2 at Wamego will be up for grabs Saturday. Girl’s action is set to start at 11:20 a.m. with the boys starting at noon.