John Raffel
Sports Editor

CEDAR SPRINGS - It was quite a day for Chelsea Prahl and her Greenville girls cross country team on Saturday at the Cedar Springs Invitational.

Prahl broke her own school record by a second with a time of 18 minutes and 43 seconds to finish first place and lead the Yellow Jackets to the team title. Greenville had 55 points compard to second-place Northview with 66 in the eight-team field. Belding was sixth with 145 and Central Montcalm seventh with 175.

Micah Hamman was second for Greenville and seventh overall in 20:23 while Shelby Harris was 10th in 20:53.

For Greenville, "Chelsea broke the record she had set as a freshman," said Greenville Coach Amanda Gerhardt. "Shelby Harris had her best time. We had three runners in the top 10, which is fantastic in an invitational with this many teams in it. It wasn't perfect weather but conditions were as good as what we ran in on Wednesday."

Tara Van Wagoner was 26th in 22:15 to lead Belding while Madison Anderson was 20th in 22:03 to pace Central Montcalm.

"Madison had a good race," said Central Coach Mike Noll. "Everyone had a personal best for us. It was a beautiful day."

"I started out fast," Anderson said. "But I managed to get a personal best.

In the boys race, Greenville was second with 62 behind Wayland with 38. Central Montcalm was seventh among eight schools with 193. Blake Bitner led Greenville with a 17:18 while Mike Moy was 12th with a 17:28. Nick Bogue led Central Montcalm by finsihing 23rd in 18:27.

"We had seven runners under 18 minutes, which was really nice," said Grreenville coach Nick Springsteen. "Our top seven runners were within 40 seconds of each other."

Bitner, a freshman, led the way for the Jackets.

"That was my personal record in a 5K," Bitner said. "I'm trying to get better in each race."

Belding didn't have a full boys team for a score. Luke Baylis was 14th in 17:35 and Ethan Jonker 15th in 17:37 and Nathan Weeks 48th in 19:17. "They had their best times today," said Belding coach John Carlson. "Five of our seven girls got their best times."

Greenville also won the boys JV race.

The Jackets took places three through eight with Derek Rydahl at 18:20.8, Jake Sherman at 18:33.2, Eli Meert at 18:38, Matt Pierson at 18:44.5 Spencer Callahan at 18:49.8 and Tyler Roelfsma at 18:51.9.

The Greenville JV runners didn't have a team score but had three girls in the top four. Casey Tissue was second in 23:28.4, Ashley Kerschen third in 23:41.1 and Macy Gilmore fourth in 23:55.