STERLING — Junior Yuelma Ortiz and senior Sara Johnson were the standout runners for the Rochelle Hub and Lady Hub varsity cross country teams on Saturday, with both girls earning medals for their strong performances at the Rock River Run hosted by Sterling High School.  

Ortiz finished 16th out of 181 runners in the 3-mile varsity race, clocking in at 20:37.1 while Johnson took 28th with a time of 21:02.0. Senior Emily Garcia ran a time of 28:34.4 to round out the Lady Hub varsity lineup on Saturday. The Hub varsity team finished 18th, while the Lady Hub varsity team and the Hub fresh-soph team did not qualify for a team score in the meet.

“I am happy with the progress that our team is making,” head coach Mark Zilis said. “Every athlete on our team has improved throughout the season and every athlete will continue to do so until the end of the season. That is all that I can ask of these hard-working athletes.”

Junior David Wanner led the Hubs in the varsity race, finishing 90th with a time of 18:22.0 while seniors Peter Forsberg and Luke Orlikowski clocked in at 19:38.0 and 19:50.4, respectively. Sophomore Parker Lenkaitis led the fresh-soph Hubs with a time of 18:50.2, with freshman Christopher Hickey running in 20:00.2 and sophomore Luis Pizano running in 21:06.6.