Lucas Riffe finished 17th out of 88 runners at the Lebanon Invitational Saturday, leading the Republic boys to a seventh-place team finish. Riffe ran the course at Nelson Park in 17:53.0, less than a second behind Branson’s Reiss Webber, who was 16th.
Zoey Johns led the Lady Tigers, finishing 18th out of 56 runners in 22:08.9. She was a second and a half behind Ozark’s Hannah Smith.
Eli Sherrow and Elin Waterman both finished with personal-best times. Sherrow, a sophomore, ran 19:52.8 and finished 41st in the boys race, and Waterman, a freshman, ran 22:38.6 to finish 24th among the girls.
Waterman was the second Lady Tiger across the line, five seconds ahead of Jovi Kirby, who was 26th in 22:43.6. Peyton Bodoin was 38th in 24:00.1, Zoie Walker was 51st, and Ellie Woolfenden was 53rd.
Luke Delahay was the second Republic boy to finish, placing 35th in 19:33.8. Caleb Brest was 49th in 20:39.3 and freshman Caden Young was 58th in 21:21.1, and they joined Riffe, Delahay, and Sherrow as Republic’s five scoring runners. Derek Argaez was 65th and Hiro Nambara was 73rd.
Republic’s boys scored 167 points and finished seventh out of 11 teams. Ozark won the meet with 27 points and put five runners in the top ten, led by Garrett Stafford, who won the race in 16:53.4.
The Lady Tigers scored 122 points and finished sixth out of six teams. Lebanon won its home meet with 51 points, and Houston freshman Myles Copley won the girls race in 19:23.7.
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