DARLINGTON — The Redbirds celebrated Parent’s Night by running against Pecatonica-Argyle in a cross country dual Sept. 15. 

“I was pleased with how they ran considering we were coming off of our invitational on Saturday and a fairly hard work out on Monday,” Darlington head coach Arnie Miehe said.

In the girls race, Darlington had the first 16 runners cross the finish line. Raquel Reuter and Judith Meister finished neck-and-neck at 22 minutes, 10 seconds. Alexis Murray (24:01) was second, followed by Ashlynn Norgard (24:26), Allyson Meyers (24:45) and Morgan Black (25:27).

Sydney Webster was the first Pecatonica-Argyle runner to cross the finish line, finishing 17th with a time of 30:14. Allie Godfrey (30:37) was 19th, while teammates Emily Zimmerman (31:28) and Norah McCarthy (31:45) finished 21st and 22nd, respectively.

On the boys side, Darlington’s George West (18:56) beat out teammates Rhett Reuter (19:04), Caleb Weaver (19:29) and Cristian Gutierrez (19:56) for the top spot. Brandon Hardt (22:51) and Liam Lansing (22:52) finished eighth and ninth overall for the Redbirds.

Pecatonica-Argyle was led by David Tisch (20:22), who was fifth. Ridge Toay (21:25) crossed the finish line in sixth place, with Brady Penniston (21:54) coming in seventh. Caden Stoeger (24:41) was 14th.

The Vikings only had four runners on both the boys and girls teams, one short of the requirement to keep a team score. Darlington ran 22 girls in the meet and 13 boys.

Darlington, Pecatonica-Argyle and Albany are back in action Sept. 25 at the Fennimore Invitational.

“We had a dedicated group of runners put in the summer miles and that will pay off for us in the end,” Miehe said. “Right now we have to put the pieces of the puzzle together and have them realize how fast they are capable of running, and then we will see where that takes us.”