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More Youth Sports

• Eagles teams end successful season
• Adams sticks with sports through photographs
• Charter School sports teams taste success

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The Marco Island Charter Middle School cross country runners ran into stiff competition on Friday in the Community School of Naples (CSN) Invitational.

The boys ended a two-meet win streak, finishing third and the girls raced to fourth.

“It was a very tough outing at CSN,” coach Roger Raymond said. “Our top boys had some sickness and Community School ran some boys we had not seen before and they stole the show.”

Community came close to a near perfect finish, scoring 19 points as their top five finishers were in the top seven. A perfect finish is all five runners finishing together for 15 points.

La Belle edged Marco for second.

“With Tanner Fulcher and Stefan Langebeeke not feeling strong we lost just enough positions that they beat us by nine points,” Raymond said. “It was a great wake up call to the boys in terms of just showing up and winning. Every meet is different and runners perform differently, sometimes in dramatic fashion.”

Langebeeke raced to 10th, Fulcher 11th, Tyler Canady 13th, Buck Reinders 16th and Jimmy Fleming 17th.

“Buck ran very well as did Jimmy,” Raymond added. “Stefan has been feeling poorly for a week and put out a strong effort under these constraints. The team will be much tougher now and again, the overall effort was solid. We just ran into some runners on a mission.”

For the boys, St. Elizabeth was fourth with 162 points, followed by St. Ann, 175, St. Michael, 186 and Village and First Baptist not have five runners.

“The girls ran well, but again the competition was very strong and our team has some very young runners,” Raymond said.

Charter’s first five were Christy Thorstenson, seventh; Lexie Lundquist, 19th; Sierra Rose, 31st; Amanda Marinaro, 35th and Joann Nguyen, 37th.

“Christy ran her best time of the year,” Raymond said. “Our top five girls are currently sixth and seventh grade students. I know they have better times ahead in terms of overall finish. It still is a matter of getting used to the pain necessary to cover two miles in a short time.”

Raymond said Michaela Smith and Anna Rafferty are running better as the season progresses and Casey Mendel and Adrienne Collins are lowering their times considerably.

“Overall, the girls team is improving and in time will surprise some people,” Raymond said. “La Belle and First Baptist are very deep and strong. First Baptist and St. Elizabeth are conference schools so we must beat them to win a conference championship on Oct. 25. That’s the same for the boys, along with Community School.”

For the girls, La Belle won with 26 points; First Baptist, 56; Marco, 129 and St. Michael, 140, while Village and Community School didn’t have five runners to gain points.

The Charter school competes again Saturday morning, beginning at 7:30 a.m. in the Manatee Middle School Invitational.