Both Lake Orion cross country squads improved significantly at the second OAA I Jamboree, held Sept. 26 at Stoney Creek Metropark.
The boys team, which finished third at the first meet over three weeks ago, nearly edged repeat winner Troy Athens.
Sophomore Ryan Ziolko led the attack for LO, finishing sixth with a time of 16:35.
Senior Max Hock (17th), junior Kyle Lawton (18th) and sophomore Doug Mack (20th) also placed in the top 20 and freshman Nathan Ziolko (27th) rounded out the Dragons? scoring.
Lake Orion’s 88 points were just four back of Athens, and two better than Birmingham Seaholm. Lahser was a close fourth with 95 points.
‘This is a young group of runners that are getting better and better,? said Coach Stan Ford, whose team will have one more chance to overtake Athens at the league championship meet on Oct. 19.
The girls were led by Allie Hock, who posted a time of 19:21. Her 10th-place finish was three spots better than the first jamboree.
As a team, the Dragons knocked 28 points off of their previous total. Their 162 points edged Seaholm by just one for seventh place.
After the jamboree, the Dragons participated in the first Waterford Mott Classic, held at Hess Hathaway Park last Saturday.
Both teams cruised to first- place finishes in the meet, highlighted by a sweep of the top three spots by the boys.
Ryan Ziolko (17:17) edged Max Hock (17:18) and Lawton (17:26) for first place, with Mack and Nathan Ziolko finishing 10th and 11th, respectively.
The boys scored 27 points, nearly 50 better than Mott. But the girls were equally dominant in victory, winning with 31 points.
They were led by Allie Hock (20:11), who finished second overall. Sammie Kaufman (fifth), Kathryn Miller (seventh), Renae Reilly (eighth) and Rebecca Dow (ninth), rounded out the LO scoring.
Prior to the jamboree, the two squads also posted impressive results at the Old Skool Classic, hosted Sept. 23 by Romeo and Armada.
The scoring format for that meet awarded points based on a runner’s finish in his/her respective grade.
A first-place finish from Allie Hock in the 11th-grade race and a second-place finish from Sydney Gutienez in the ninth grade race propelled the girls into second place, with 17 team points.
The boys had first-place finishes from both Ziolkos brothers and Lawton, and got second-place finishes from Max Hock and Mack, in their respective grades, to claim first place with seven points.