BUNKER HILL -- Hamilton Heights and Warren Central may have been the class of the annual running of the Maconaquah Cross Country Invitational, but the Western boys and girls teams proved they're no slouches.

Western runners Annina Gruber and Kyle Walsh captured the individual championships Saturday morning and the Panthers came through with solid supporting performances to claim third in the team standings of both varsity races.

The Heights girls, ranked 12th in the state, finished first with 28 points as five Husky runners finished among the top 10. Noblesville was next at 54 while the Panthers grabbed third with 63. The host Braves were fourth at 111, Northwestern (173) was sixth, Kokomo (199)Seventh, Peru (251) ninth and Cass (256) was 10th.

Warren Central, ranked 16th, ran to first in the boys' team standings with 36 while Noblesville (60) and Western (100) took the next two spots. Peru (170) was fifth with Heights (178) sixth and Kokomo (205) eighth. Following Northwestern (250) in 10th were Eastern (291), Cass (544), Maconaquah (347), Taylor (396), Tri-Central (396) and Tipton (417).

A sophomore, Gruber's victory was the second of her career in a multi-team race. Her first title came in last year's Western Invitational, but that had just five teams. The field at Maconaquah included representatives from 16 schools.

Running with Gruber for much of the early going was freshman teammate Anna Hurlock. "Having Anna up there with me helps because she pushes me a lot in races and practices With Brittany [Stellhorn]," she said. “She's doing really well.”

At about the two-mile mark, Gruber began pulling away and she finished the four kilometer course in 15 minutes, 28.1 seconds. Heights' Heather Reeves put on a late charge, but finished second at 15:28.7.

"It surprised me" she said of her lead. "I expected a bunch of Hamilton Heights girls to be right there, but there were only a couple there the whole time who got between Anna and me.”

Hurlock took fifth with Stellhorn 12th for Western. Becky Elliott was 21st and Cassie Myer 50th for the Panthers.

The next area runner was Eastern's Laura Boltz, who took Seventh for the short-hand, ed Comets. Kristi Romine and Michelle Denham finished 13th and 15th to pace Maconaquah. Danidle Glick of Taylor was 19th and several area runners were first in for their teams following Elliot[ Sarah Lee and Adrienne Shepherd topped the Wildkats, finishing 22nd and 24th. Cass' Ashley Jones was 25rd and Lauren Sewell was first for Northwestern in 27th.

In the boys race, Walsh pulled away from the front pack of six runners with 1,000 meters left and finished the 5K in 16:02.7.

"I put on a big surge and just pulled away from the crowd" he said.

Jim Jackson came through in fourth while Michael Marley was 23rd, Luke Minor 36th and Eric Walsh 58th for Western.

"Jim and Kyle, what can you say? They're constants. We always rely on those two,' said Panthers assistant coach Dave Britton, who was filling in for coach Dana Neer. "We're pleased with this. I think this is where Dana expected us to be. We knew it would take a good effort to get Noblesville.

"I think it surprised a lot of people to see Annina and Anna out in the lead like that. The girls did great. All of them ran personal bests and a lot improved by 50 or 40 seconds."

Kokomo's Bryan Phillips was ninth and followed in llth by Elliott Cohee of Peru. Northwestern's Carleton Smith took 20th with Chris Schoff of Cass finishing 25th.