MARTIN — The Sturgis girls cross country squad capped off the season with a second-place finish in the Wolverine Conference standings.
The Wolverine Championships were hosted by U.S. 131 Motorsports park on Tuesday, Oct. 21, where the Lady Trojans officially finished third for the day behind Otsego and Plainwell. For the season, however, Sturgis registered a second-place overall finish based on points in the standings.
The Trojans finished with a pair of All-Conference runners. Freshman Alice Starkey ran to 10th place as an individual, her time was 19:47. Leilani Machuca, also a freshman, ran to 14th position with a time of 20:08.
Lulu Park finished 18th (20:46), Ally Farber (21:03) was 21st and Emmy Farber (21:24) was 26th. Annmarie Taylor finished 28th (21:37) and Eleanor Park was 31st (21:56).
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The Sturgis boys were seventh overall as a team in the league standings. The team was led by Milo Barry in 25th position at 17:42 on Tuesday. Vaughn Merril ran to 33rd (17:53), and Cooper Hohn was 38th at 18:33. Niko Morales was 42nd (18:52), Henry Ebert ran to 50th (19:26), Caleb Hohn was 51st (19:26) and Bryce Smoker finished 54th (20:24).
Three Rivers finished fourth for the girls. The Cats were led by Brynn Copenhaver in 15th position with a time of 20:25. The Three Rivers boys finished fifth overall; the Cats were led by David Kore in a second-place run of 16:06.
Last weekend, Sturgis hosted the 62nd annual Kiwanis Invitational. The Lady Trojans finished second overall out of 16 teams at the invite with 68 points. The Trojans nearly won the invite, finishing just behind St. Joseph's 67.
Starkey ran to fifth place at 19:54, Machuca was eighth at 20:12 and Lulu Park ran to ninth at 20:26 to lead Sturgis.
Bronson (eighth, 236), Centreville (10th, 300) and Constantine (11th, 310) also ran at the invite. Alonna Goodsell led Bronson in 13th at 20:26, Centreville was led by Addison Johnson in 44th at 22:06, and Constantine was led by Allison Burns in 25th at 21:23.
For the boys, Will Hulin of Centreville won the Kiwanis individual championship with a run of 15:54. The Bulldogs also had a seventh-place finish from Nick Overweg, who ran a time of 16:17. Max Reed ran to ninth overall at 16:31.
Centreville was fifth as a team with 131 points; Sturgis was 10th at 286. Bronson finished 13th at 338, and Constantine came in 15th at 399.
Sturgis was led by Cooper Hohn in 36th at 17:33. Barry was 58th at 18:10, and Merril came in 60th at 18:15.
Bronson was led by Brayton Cosby in 40th position; his time was 17:37. Leading Constantine was Aaron Hofmeister, who ran a time of 18:11 for 59th overall.
Sturgis will be the host site for the St. Joseph County Meet on Monday afternoon, Oct. 26.
Contact Sports Editor Brandon Watson at bwatson@gannett.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @BwatsonSJ.
This article originally appeared on Sturgis Journal: Starkey, Machuca earn All-Conference to lead Sturgis to second-place finish