Sports roundup

By Ben Short and Jayshaun Jones / Staff Writers

The Hutchinson Blue Dragons women cross country team started this season with an eighth-place finish at the annual Terry Masterson Twilight at Fun Valley. They were led by Louise Cocking, where she finished fourth in the season opener, making it her fifth top-five finish in her career.

The season opener was a tough one for the Blue Dragons, as they only had one runner in the top 25. The rest of the team finished between 55th and 70th.

The runners at the home meet did face some adversity. The Twilight wasn’t exactly run under the lights as normal. The start of the race was moved up three hours to avoid potential heavy rains for later in the evening.

While the race temperature was in the mid-80s and under cloud cover, the runners battled high humidity.

The runners will take on their next meet on Sept. 18 in Newton.

Men’s cross country – The Blue Dragons tarted on the right foot with impressive performances from all their runners on Friday at the Terry Masterson Twilight.

One of the stronger runners was freshman Collin Oswalt, posting a time of 20:38.2, and he was awarded fourth place in the men’s four-mile race.

Another strong performance from Hutch was sophomore, Andrew Holt. Holt ran a time of 22:37.5, a whole nine seconds better than his time from the Masterson Twilight last year. Holt would finish 34th. Another Blue Dragon in the top 50 was sophomore Aaron Geissinger, who ran a time of 23:08.1. Geissinger improved his time by 29 seconds from his original time at the Masterson Twilight meet.

Soccer – The Blue Dragons continued their perfect all-time record against Garden City on Wednesday with a 2-0 win at Broncbuster Stadium.

Hadlie Lowe and Lani Dickinson had goals, while Olivia Felix-Cardona had the shutout in goal.

The Blue Dragons improved to 2-2 overall and earned their first conference in three games.

The Blue Dragons dominated the game, with 10 shots on goal compared to two for Garden City.

Next for the Blue Dragons will be a road trip Saturday to take on archrival Butler.

Volleyball – The Blue Dragons continued their struggles this week, as they lost to Butler in three sets.

This match was their straight loss, making them 4-3 overall. The Blue Dragons hit only .124 in the match and were swept 25-15, 25-16, 25-21.

Blondie Penaflor led the Blue Dragons with 10 kills and nobody else had more than five kills on the team.

Losing is not uncommon for the Blue Dragons in the Power Plant, as this is the third straight season it has happened.

Setter Andrea Serrano returned to the lineup and contributed with 15 assists on the night.

Football – The Blue Dragons started strong against Coffeyville, coming out to a 7-0 lead early. It all went downhill from there, as turnovers were shooting the Blue Dragons in the foot. Quarterback Dylan Laible threw two interceptions, and the Blue Dragons lost five fumbles on the night.Two turnovers were in the red zone on fourth-quarter possessions. This win snapped a five-game winning streak against Coffeyville, and a 13-game season-opener winning streak was also snapped. The Blue Dragons look to come back on Saturday at Gowans Stadium against Butler.

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