ELYRIA, Ohio (Oct. 22, 2022) -- Rocky River's boys and girls teams are both heading for regional tournament action. Both posted qualifying performances at Saturday's DI Lorain District Tournament held at Lorain County Community College. [boys, girls]

The Double-R boys registered five top-40 finishes in placing third in Saturday's race. Senior Majid Abuaun led the way, crossing the wire in 16:51.8 and placing eighth in a field of 177 athletes. Fellow senior Luke Dorenkott filed an 18th-place finish.

Ben Buehrle, Jackson Rood, and Grant Preto were also in on the Pirates' team score of 129. Only Medina (69 points) and Highland (97) posted better scores in a field of 24 teams.

In the girls competition, a fourth-place finish by junior Brianna Chaves paced a fifth-place finish by the Pirates. Chaves clocked in at 19:32.1. As a team (Chaves, Katie Stirm, Grace Lavelle, Jane Rathbun, Allie Dewey), River tallied 129 points to card fifth in a field of 20 teams and 150 runners.

The girls race was won by Westlake, the only team River finished behind in the Oct. 15 Great Lakes Conference Championships.

And now both Pirate squads will be training for the Northeast Ohio Region Tournament, which will be contested Oct. 29 at Youngstown Boardman High School. The course will be a familiar one for River runners: the Pirate boys and girls took seventh and fourth place, respectively in the Sept. 17 Boardman Spartan Cross Country Invitational.


by Skip Snow

# # # River # # #