Freshman Handsaker shows out in Garden City's first race of the season

September 4, 2020

By Mike Pilosof

Hutchinson, KS-After six tumultuous months, college sports made their debut in the Jayhawk Conference on Friday night.

In the school's first competition since March, the Broncbusters didn't place as a team, but did have some standout individual performances including freshman Eli Handsaker, who paced the team with a 39^th place finish (23:55.4) at the Terry Masterson Twilight Classic at Hutchinson Community College.

"The men did a great job of being competitive in their college debut," first-year Head Coach Emmett Statzer said. "We made moves when we needed to and moved up throughout the race."

Behind Handsaker was teammate Jose Ruiz, who came in less than a minute behind at 24:25.3, good for 44^th place. Johnny Lozana landed at 52^nd place (25:41.7) and Erick Almaraz capped off the night with a time of 26:16.6.

"These guys wanted to set a new standard for Garden City Cross County, and they set the bar high," Statzer added. "The future looks promising for this team."

Cloud County's Habtamu Geta won the individual mile with a time of 20:13.5 while Allen County took home the team title with 49 points.

Garden City returns to action on Friday when they take part in the Ollie Isom Invitational in El Dorado, the first 8K of the season.