Just four days after seeing new personal bests for nearly every Raven runner at the University of Iowa’s Ashton cross country course, the times weren’t quite as fast at the Hillcrest Invitational on Monday. 

But Hillcrest coach Marty Gingerich was still pleased with his runners’ placing and effort. 

“No one had a PR tonight, and the reason is the course,” he said. “There might be other reasons too, but that’s the biggest reason. 

The Ravens hosted 355 runners in the junior high, JV and varsity races on Monday. Teams from Washington, Mount Pleasant, Fairfield, Pella, and Danville were among those that made the trip to the Hillcrest Academy campus.

“I really enjoy having all these strong teams come to our course,” Gingerich said. “I think we do have a good course. It’s challenging, we got a lot of compliments on it. I like bringing a lot of runners here. And it’s an opportunity for our runners to be in a competing and strong field in front of their own home crowd.”

Spectators packed both sides of the course over the final 200 yards of the race to encourage the runners as they finished. Hillcrest sophomore Micah Gerber appreciated the support as he finished 34th with a time of 19:40.

“It was amazing having a lot of supporters here to watch,” he said. It’s nice to see a lot of people.”

Gerber broke 19 minutes for the first time on Thursday with a time of 18:51 at the Bud Williams Invitational hosted by City High. He couldn’t match that time on the hills at Hillcrest, but his time was 38 seconds faster than the season-opening Early Bird on the same course. 

“Yeah, there was improvement,” he said. “I was happy with my time. I felt good going the first mile, but the second and third got me, like usual.”

Jesse Blossom took nearly a minute off of his time from the first race at Hillcrest. His 46th place time of 20:58 would have been a new personal record a week earlier, but he had an incredible finish of 19:59 at Ashton on Thursday. 

Lone Tree’s Jadin Grieser finished 57th with a time of 24:18. 

Hillcrest sophomores Jeremiah Danker and Kyle Neuschwander were 58th and 60th. Neuschwander set a new PR of 26:01 on Thursday when he finished just two seconds behind Danker in Iowa City. 

Pella senior Chase Lauman set a new course record with a time of 16:31, finishing four seconds ahead of Washington junior Micah Rees. The top four varsity boys all finished faster than the previous course record of 17:06 held by Danville’s Ty Carr. 

For the girls, Lone Tree sophomore Vivian Zaruba was the top area finisher with a 25th place time of 23:48. Delaney Shaw took over two and a half minutes off of her time from the Early Bird with a 43rd place finish of 25:51.

“It’s nice running into cooler weather for sure, even though it’s still warmer today than it has been recently,” Shaw said. 

Shaw also set a new PR with a time of 25:06 at the U of I course on Thursday, but she was happy to finish under 26 at the Ravens’ home course. 

“For running a harder course than we have been running — I was pretty happy with my time,” she said. 

Shaw was also thankful to see so many cross country supporters from Hillcrest and other schools at Monday’s meet. 

“It’s really nice,” Shaw said. “Cross country doesn’t really get that much recognition, usually. Knowing that the community is here is really nice, it’s a good support system.”