Allmer shines: Jamestown standout bests 82-person field

It wasn’t a blazing start, but Jamestown High School stand-out runner Alison Allmer took care of business with relative ease Friday morning.

The senior was toward the front right away and put considerable distance between herself and the pack during the second mile to win the Jamestown Orriginals Invitational at Hillcrest Golf Course.

“She kind of knew that the first mile was slow,” Jamestown coach Ken Gardner said. “The second mile, she took charge there. Once she gained that lead, I think she put it on cruise control. It’s not like she was pushed to the limit.”

Allmer finished the course in 15 minutes, 39 seconds, edging Fargo Davies runner Katie Bye by 23 seconds.

“Her time at Hillcrest was faster than her time last year at McElroy, so we’ll take that as a good sign,” Gardner said.

The Blue Jays didn’t have a full squad, as Gardner said some of the girls didn’t have the practices yet. Because it only had four girls compete, Jamestown had to take an 83 as a ghost runner to count in its final total, which was 228 and good for sixth place.

“Even with a ghost score, we still ended up sixth out of 18 teams,” Gardner said. “We’ll take that as a real positive.”

Eighth-graders Maya Moltzen, Rachel Morin and Ligia Schulz placed 40th, 43rd and 61st, respectively, for the Blue Jays.

West Fargo’s 71 edged Davies by seven tallies for the team title. Southern McLean’s Abi Waloch was third, while Apple Valley, Minn., runners Meredith Jones and Cami Sjoquist were fourth and fifth, respectively.

Freshman Kyle Schumacher led the Blue Jays on the boys side, with a team-best time of 19:42 that placed him 50th. Seniors Phil Manley (58), Michael Sorensen (62) and Kyle Gee (76) placed ahead of teammate Alex Igl (83) to round out Jamestown’s crew. The Blue Jays took 10th with a 329.

“You could tell this our first race,” Gardner said. “And that they haven’t done a whole lot of race-pace work yet. We’ll get there and do more of that.”

Davies’ 61 topped runner-up West Fargo by 37 spots. Bismarck Century was third with a 102.

The race winner was Century’s Cataldo Didonna, whose 16:51 was 27 seconds faster than Davies’ Brandon Scheel. Seb Startz of Fargo Shanley, Jackson Binstock of Dickinson and Fargo North’s Tanner Bjorlie rounded out the top five, respectively.

Jamestown is back in action with a meet Friday in Valley City.

For full results, check out Page B2.

Sun sports writer Chris Aarhus can be reached at (701) 952-8462 or by e-mail at caarhus@jamestownsun.com

Tags: sports, track, jays