WICHITA— Kerby Depenbusch has yet to finish a race this year where he is not in the top three. The Great Bend sophomore’s second place finish at Saturday’s run at Wichita Southeast is Depenbusch’s second straight silver medal showing and his third consecutive top three performance.

Depenbusch timed in at 16:12 in the boys’ 5K Saturday as the Panthers finished ninth with a score of 236 out of 17 teams competing. Andover (94), Wichita North (118) and Washburn Rural (129) rounded out the top three team finishes in order.

“We were at full strength and our boys’ team turned in a much better team performance which was in the middle of the pack against some very tough competition,” said coach Todd Kaiser. “Every one of our boys ran their season best time today with a number of them having a significant drop in their time which is good to see.”

Other Great Bend boys’ performances:

Eric Vazquez; 22nd place in a time of 17:15 (season best)
Armando Jaquez; 52nd place in a time of 18:08 (season best)
Isaiah Davis; 58th place in a time of 18:16 (career best)
Anthony Martinez; 105th place in a time of 20:11 (season best)
Chandler Miller; 110th place in a time of 21:04 (season best)
Logan O’Neil; 112th place in a time of 21:32 (season best)

Individual JV results
Jeffery Muiruri; 50th place in a time of 20:04
Jonas Meeks; 85th place in a time of 21:06
Rodrigo Miranda; 113th place in a time of 22:51
Alex Banda; 119th place in a time of 24:22
Nate Dawes; 120th place in a time of 24:41
Eli Hutchinson; 123rd place in a time of 25:15

“We just need to get our five through seven runners up closer to our top four runners and if we can do that we will have a chance to be more successful as a team,” Kaiser said. “We also had Jeffery (Muiruri) back today and he ran in the JV race and with his time, he earned a varsity spot heading into our next meet at Rim Rock.”

In the girls’ race Karen Razo finished seventh at 20:19 in the 5K. Madi Bittner was a top 20 finisher in the girls’ JV race placing 11th in 22:50.

“Karen ran a very good race today,” said Kaiser. “Other than being too spread out the varsity girls did OK. They just have to get packed up better, like the boys did today, and they will have more success as a team. They have the ability. They just have to buy into it.”

Kaiser commented on the switch to 5K for the girls’ races this season. “It’s a work in progress,” he said. “This is only their second 5K this year and we have many more throughout the remainder of the season.”

Other Great Bend girls’ performances:

Paloma Sandoval; 60th place in a time of 23:22
Ashley Weingrad; 61st place in a time of 23:24
Autumn Weingrad; 73rd place in a time of 24:06
Ema Millard; 76th place in a time of 24:23
Abby Stiner; 83rd place in a time of 25:04
Calista Long; 84th place in a time of 25:11

Individual JV results
Madi Bittner; 11th place in a time of 22:50
Angela Enriquez; 35th place in a time of 24:42
Ruth Reyes; 45th place in a time of 25:27
Amelia Sommers; 51st place in a time of 25:52

Great Bend will compete at Rim Rock this Saturday. This weekend’s run is one of the premier high school cross country meets featuring some of the top high school cross country programs in the Midwest.