By Jacob Heid

PORTAGE COUNTY — The Amherst boys and girls cross country teams hosted the Amherst Invitational at Standing Rock Park on Aug 25. The Falcons had strong showings on both teams. One race happened to finish neck and neck between two Amherst runners. 

The meet started with the middle school teams and later turned to the varsity runners. The varsity girls ran the 3.1 miles around the property, and the finish between Amherst’s Saige and Lia Peterson for first place came down to tenths of seconds. The twins were stride for stride coming to the finish line. Saige was declared the technical winner, winning by less than a tenth of a second. The juniors were also a part of the track and field team in the spring, qualifying for state in the 4×400 and 4×800 relay. 

For the boys’ race, three Falcons finished in the top ten with times all under twenty minutes. Junior Max Voss finished in fifth with a time of 18:40.6, a six-minute and one-second pace for one mile. The other top finishers for the Falcons were sophomore Elijah Bohm, who finished eighth with a time of 19:16.4. Junior Cayden Wright finished ninth for Amherst with a time of 19:22.6. 

Both the boy’s and girl’s teams finished in second place as a team in the invitational. The next meet for both teams will be hosted by Iola-Scandinavia High School on Aug 30. The racing starts at 4 p.m. If you have other local sports news or information, contact me at [email protected]. You can also follow me on Twitter at JacobHeid_15 for updates on local sporting events and other news.