BonnerSprings.com

The Bonner Springs High School cross country team started strong at the first meet of the season Saturday at the Hayden Invitational in Topeka.

The boys finished third and the girls were seventh. The meet featured BSHS, Hayden, KC Christian, Olpe, Bishop Ward, Maranatha and Paola.

Junior Brooks Ballou finished first overall on the boy's side, winning in a convincing fashion, by turning in a time of 17 minutes, 5 seconds, on the 5K course.

"I felt pretty good out there on the course," Ballou said. "At about mile one I passed the last guy and just hung on from there."

As an upperclassman he is expected to take on a bigger leadership role on the team, which has lost experience due to graduation and injury. His approach to running is very simple and is what he tries to pass along to the younger runners - just go as hard as you can for as long as you can.

That approach also helped the top girls performer from the weekend, Tessa Seaton. She finished 20th in the 4K race with a time of 18.54. The way she finished is what really got coach Bill Downing excited for her season. She had been averaging 3:50 half-miles, but found another gear in the last half-mile, shaving nearly 20 seconds off her average to medal.

"It is hard to know how well you did in the first race of the year because you don't have anything to compare it to," Seaton said. "I felt really good in the race and just started picking other runners off from behind really quickly."

Seaton and Ballou earned the honor of receiving the "Golden Watch" award from Downing. It is an award that goes out to the most impressive outings for the Braves each week.

Isaac Mills, a senior who tries to lead by example, ran a nice race pace and finished sixth with a time of 18.05. Bryce Peterson finished 17th with a time of 19.05 to round out the medals for the Braves. Freshman Scintila Capalla just missed medaling for the girls with a 24th place finish and a time of 19.16.

"Ballou's time was a really good time for this early in the year," Downing said. "He ran a really good race because he trained really hard over the summer. If we can get everybody coming together at the right time, things will work out team wise. I really want to see the younger runners develop as the year goes on."

The two-time defending Kaw Valley League boys champions have a long way to go to match their past successes according to Mills.

"The young guys are running well, but we all need to improve after this weekend," he said. "We are not where we want to be yet for legue, regionals and state."

In the middle school race, eighth-graders Mandy Ballou and TJ Kimbrough led the way. Ballou finished first for girls with a time of 14:00, and Kimbrough finished 9th on the boy's side with a time of 13:38.

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