As the Panorama Panthers Boys and Girls Cross Country teams got their first taste of action last week at the Southeast Valley Invitational, one runner for the boys team set a new school record for the course.

The Panthers were at the Gowrie Municipal Golf Course last Thursday for the Southeast Valley Invitational and Head Coach Greg Thompson says Anton Uffhausen, a foreign exchange student who is from Germany, was running in his first ever 5K race and set a new school record for the course at 19:14.

“For him not having that experience, we saw that he had the potential to be a good runner we just didn’t know it was going to be quite that good this early. So, we are quite impressed. The really impressive part about him is just the competitiveness that he had.”

Thompson tells Raccoon Valley Radio other runners also performed well at the Southeast Valley Invitational last week and the coaching staff is happy with the performance which saw multiple runners including Payton Beckman for the girls and Anton Uffhausen finish in the top 15 individually.

“Overall, our coaching staff, we were really really pleased with the five kids that ran for us that night.”

The Panthers are looking ahead to their next meet which is a junior varsity and varsity invitational taking place at 5 p.m. Friday at Madrid High School.