The Andes Central/Dakota Christian Thunder Cross Country team competed in their first meet of the 2020 season on Saturday, August 29 at the Mitchell Invitational Meet. Tenth grader, Isabella Brouwer placed third in the Girls Varsity 4000 Meter race with at time of 16:44 and Sonya Hansum was 31st at 20:28. In the Boy’s Varsity, Peter Backes was 39th with a time of 17:22 and Tony Hansum was 49th in 17:46.

The Mitchell Meet hosted a large number of area schools such as Chamberlain, Miller, Platte-Geddes, Mt. Vernon/ Plankington, Hanson, Bridgewater-Emery, Northwestern, Kimball/White Lake, Tripp/Delmont/Armour, Redfield, Mitchell Christian, Wagner, and Wolsey-Wessington. No team scores were compiled. Top individual finishers were all from Chamberlain, Kinsey Evans and Allison Hough in the Girls Division and Dom Santiago and Decian Tveit for the boys.

Lexi Schoenfielder placed sixth in the Girls Junior Varsity Race and Regan Hubers was 19th. Both runners will be moving up to run with the other varsity runners later in the season. The Thunder has another Saturday Meet on September 5th running at Mitchell Christian with a 9:00am start time.

“Running at Mitchell Christian will allow us to be with more schools of our size, said Coach Larry Lucas. That will help us build more confidence and develop into running the full 5K distance. We are looking forward to this meet which will be more of a trail run rather than running on the traditional golf courses.”