Ava Cross Country Runs In Nixa Invitational Sept. 20

^{Thirty schools attended the Nixa Invitational and a hot one it was as temps topped at an unseasonable 90 degrees right as the meet was beginning.}

^{Finishing in 49th, the Lady Bears were led by sophomore Emily Stillings with a time of 23:47, which was an improvement of 59 seconds over last year.}  

^{Eden Little had a time of 24:27, which placed her 56th. Emily Little was 89th with a time of 26:46. She improved her time from last year’s Nixa meet by 3 minutes 1 second.}  

^{Hailey Pedersen finished in 95th with a time of 27:54, and Calista Giorgianni placed 106th with a time of  31:26.}  

^{The girls were missing a key teammate in Allyson Shots who was attending a leadership training seminar for the FFA blood drive.  The Lady Bears placed 15th in the Class 3-4 race.}  

^{There were two separate varsity level races at Nixa; one was for the Class 1 and 2 schools and the other was Class 3 and 4. Ava is competing now in the larger school division of Class 3. This is a new experience for the Bears. Since 2007, cross country at Ava has been solely Class 2 every year.}  

^{The Ava Bears finished in 2nd place when compared to the other Class 3 schools and was 8 out of 18 in Class 3-4 combined.}  

^{Joe Sicilia ran an 18:38 and led the Bears for the fourth straight meet of the 2016 season. Joe was 30th overall.} 

^{Collin Jenkins came in 2nd for the team and had a PR of 54 seconds per mile with a 19:00.  Collin finished in 37th.}

^{Jacob Luebbering blasted his time from last year by 2 minutes 56 seconds and finished in 40th with a time of 19:07.} 

^{Drew Adams was in the 48th spot with a time of 19:21, and Tristen Shearer ran a 19:27 for the 50th spot.}  

^{Jacob Key had a 19:35 and finished in 53rd. Devon Darlington ran a 20:55 for 84th. There were 124 boys in the varsity race.}

^{The junior varsity entered five Ava boys in the race. Freshman Garrett Devore  in his first race of his cross country career finished the 2.2 mile JV race in 15:37 and was 27th. Gavin Goss, who finished 42nd,  ran a 15:59 and had an incredible improvement of 4 minutes 12 seconds faster than last year.}

^{Troy Herrell had a personal best from last year by 1 minute 7 seconds with a time of 16:10.  He placed 47th. Braden Swofford ran a 16:46 to place 66th.}

^{Freshman Caiden Palmer made his cross country running debut with a time of  19:39 and placed 114th.  There were 126 boys in the JV race.}    

^{The Bears and Lady Bears have a schedule change to be noted.  Hollister Invitational has been rescheduled for Oct. 4 and will take the  place of the Springfield Catholic Meet held the same day.  Hollister is the site of the Class 3 District 6 championships.}