By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
Cooper senior Paul Van Laningham placed ninth in the 5K boys race at the NXN national high school cross country championships on Saturday in Portland, Ore.
Van Laningham was among 100 high school boys from across the country who qualified for the race sponsored by Nike. He finished in 15:72.2, which was 16 seconds behind winning runner Jackson Spencer, a senior at Herriman High School in Utah.
This coming Saturday, Van Laningham will compete in the Brooks Cross Country Championships in San Diego.
The field for that race will also include runners from across the country who were among the top finishers in region qualifying meets.
In early November, Van Laningham won the Kentucky Class 3A boys state meet in 15:01.12, eclipsing the course record (15:19.87) he set the previous year. He is the first Northern Kentucky cross country runner to win the Class 3A boys state title twice.
The senior has made a verbal commitment with the University of Wisconsin. He’ll be joining a men’s cross country team that placed 19th in the 2025 NCAA Division I championship meet last month.
Guards spark CovCath basketball team’s 2-0 start
Covington Catholic entered the season ranked among the state’s top boys basketball teams because of the “elite trio” coach Jake Thelen said he has in the backcourt.
In the first two games last week, guards Athens McGillis, Cash Harney and Braeden Myrick scored a combined total of 114 points for a 57.0 average that carried the Colonels to a pair of lopsided victories.
In a season-opening 104-48 win over a touring team from Australia, McGillis scored 34 points, followed by Myrick with 15 and Harney with 14. On Saturday, CovCath won a game at Lexington Catholic, 71-52, behind 24 points from Myrick and 20 from McGillis.
McGillis shot 56.8 percent (21 of 37) from the field in the first two games while Myrick, a transfer student from Mason County, knocked down 45 percent (9 of 20) of his 3-point attempts.
Notre Dame grad helps team advance in playoffs
Notre Dame Academy graduate Kamden Schrand is a starting libero on the University of Louisville volleyball team that advanced to the “Sweet 16” in the NCAA Division I playoffs by winning two matches last week.
In victories over Loyola, 3-0, and Marquette, 3-2, Schrand led the Cardinals in digs with 10 and 20. The junior also had three assists in the second win that moved her 26-6 team into the third round of the playoff bracket.
Going into Louisville’s next match against Texas A&M (25-4) on Friday, Schrand has a team-high 477 digs in 122 sets for a 3.97 average. She also ranks second on the team in service aces with 33.
In her final high school season, Schrand was named 2022 Defensive Player of the Year by the Kentucky Volleyball Coaches Association after helping Notre Dame win its second state championship in three years.