One thing Mike Spielman’s proved during his 16-year career as coach at Baldwin High School is that results don’t have to be great for him to be optimistic about his teams.

He once again proved that Saturday at the Rim Rock Classic cross country meet.

His BHS boys’ team took its No. 2 ranking in Class 4A into the Gold Division that was loaded with top teams from Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. The Bulldogs were looking to make some noise in the talent-filled race, but things didn’t go as they hoped.

Baldwin’s second runner, freshman Brian Wright, went down with an injury during the middle of the race. His loss hurt the Bulldogs as they finished 16th out of 28 teams. Wright should return to the Bulldogs’ lineup this Saturday.

“We ran well today,” Spielman said. “When you lose your second runner, it’s going to hurt your score some. The other guys stepped up and filled in his place. That’s what we have to learn to do for the last few meets.”

The Bulldogs were hoping to compete with two other top 4A schools, Mulvane and Wamego. Instead, Spielman and his boys now know what they have to beat at the state meet on Nov. 1.

Mulvane placed fourth as a team and was the top Kansas team in the race. Wamego finished in ninth place.

“We now know what we have to do to compete with those teams,” Spielman said. “This was a good meet for us to judge where we are, even though we didn’t have everybody finish. Now we just have to get a little better during the next few weeks and we will do that.”

Sophomore Tony Weiss was happy with the team’s performance Saturday.

“I think we all ran pretty well,” Weiss said. “I know Brian went down because of his ankle or something, but everyone else ran well. I thought we did well as a team.”

Weiss turned in his best race at Rim Rock to lead the Bulldogs. He placed fourth and, for the second straight meet, he ran a personal-best time. He finished the 5-kilometer race in a time of 16:30.97.

“I was pretty happy,” Weiss said. “I was shooting for finishing in the top 10 or top five. It was a tough race, but I was happy. I barely caught the guy at the end to place fourth. It was a tough race.”

Senior Connor Wright was Baldwin’s second runner. He placed 42nd in a time of 17:20.31. Freshman Tosh Mihesuah was the Bulldogs’ next runner. Mihesuah finished 108th as he ran 18:17.24. Junior Carson Barnes (123rd, 18:27.22), senior Brad Canterbury (129th, 18:31.96) and junior Josh Hanson (156th, 19:01.52) rounded out the Bulldogs’ team.

Baldwin will run at home this weekend as it hosts the Community America Invitational at the Baldwin City Municipal Golf Course. The meet begins at 9 a.m. with two junior high school races. The varsity races start at 9:30 a.m. and the junior varsity races begin at 10:30 a.m. The boys run first on all levels.

JV results

35. Joey LaBuda, 18:4546

68. Hunter Burkhart, 19:19.11

75. Blake Randels, 19:29.45

94. Kyle Garcia, 19:50.92

107. Andy Woods, 20:10.96

122. Cody Kruger, 20:34.35

126. Braden Phillips, 20:49.01

C-team results

4-kilometer race

20. Patrick Pinault, 16:01.94

25. Chris Hecker, 16:08.03

26. Ethan Horne, 16:08.27

65. Nick Waltz, 17:30.86

107. Lex Jones, 19:13.92

112. Brian Lamoreux, 19:29.17

128. Derek Wallace, 20:34.75

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