Noecker continues to cruise for HNS team

WAYNE — Hartington-Newcastle’s Carson Noecker had quite the week on the cross country paths.

The sophomore captured the Wayne High Invitational crown last week with a time of 15:58 to outpace the field by 68 seconds.

The Wildcats finished third as a team.

Parker Albers (20:03.2), Riley Kuehn (20:24.5), Alan Santiago (21:51.6) and Lukas Wortmann (22:22.7) scored for the highplacing squad.

Sara Burbach ran a 24:00.1 to finish 10th and lead the Lady Wildcats.

Jessica Opfer (25:37), Kaydence McCray (26:21.3) and Makenzie Arens (43:10.5) also ran for the Lady Wildcats at Wayne.

The cross country team will run at Crofton on Thursday and will take the long trip to Kearney on Monday to compete in the UNK Invitational. Coach Mandy Hochstein said the team likes to compete at the Kearney meet so they can get accustomed to the course where the State Cross Country Meet will be held.