Western finished second in the girls race and third in the boys race Saturday in the Maconaquah Cross Country Invitational.
On the girls side, No. 8 Noblesville won with a team score of 26, followed by the Panthers (71), Northwestern (125), Kokomo (135, Maconaquah (145), Hamilton Heights (150), Tipton (161), Logansport (162), Eastern (192) and Peru (222). Taylor and Southwood were incomplete.
Corianne Myer led the Panthers with a 10th-place finish (21:18). Jenn Elliott was 12th (22:07), Lacey Myer was 15th (22:24), Bre Nicholas was 17th (22:25) and Kayla Gaskins was 22nd (22:43.)
"It was a great field," Western coach Heather Yentes said of the teams at the invite. "We were missing two of our top five runners so to go ahead and get second is awesome. Those girls really did a great job. Four of them got [personal records] and Corianne is a freshman and got our best time, so that was outstanding."
Jennifer Claudio paced Northwestern in eighth at 21:18. Hannah Ault was 18th (22:30), Gretchen Catron was 30th (24:01), Ruby Sanchez was 31st (24:09) and Morgan Hullinger was 39th (24:48).
"All seven of my runners set personal bests with a tremendous effort from all seven girls," NW coach Dave Stevens said. "I was very proud of a third-place finish, losing to ranked teams in front of us. Jennifer Claudio led us again with a fine race."
Nicky Parry led the Wildkats with a fifth-place finish in 20:54. Hailey Blitchart finished 22nd (23:03), Kellie Miles was 26th (23:35), Katie Klein was 36th (24.39) and Kelsey Griffin was 46th (24:44).
Kim Lane led Maconaquah in 13th place (22:20) followed by Megan Frantz in 23rd (23:13), Meggan Adcock in 27th (23:41), Whitney Wilson in 28th (23:49) and Mallory Patton in 54th (26.35).
Tipton’s Eroica Stackhouse was the fastest local, taking third place in 20.39. Teammate Megan Harper was 10th (21:58), Candace Blaylock was 33rd (24:22), Sally Miller was 49th (25:50), Caitlyn Ross was 66th (30:05).
Emily Rethlake took 18th to lead Eastern (22:38), followed by Danielle Stiner in 24th (23:15), Emily Wilcox in 34th (24:32), Lindsey Reprogle in 52nd (26:15) and Abby Altman in 64th (28:25).
Tiffany Raber finished 35th to lead Peru in (24:37). Taylour Kintner was 42nd (25:09), Courtney Iliff was 45th (25:36), Krystal Hopper was 47th (25:47) and Kelsey Lilla was 53rd (26:24).
The Titans were incomplete so their place finishes correspond to how they finished in the field, not the scoring. Leslie Maple was 24th (23:07), Britney Parsley was 53rd. (26:05), Sasha Buntyn was 66th (28:02), and Mary Troyer was 72nd (31:00).
In the boys meet, No. 11 Noblesville was first with a score of 26, followed by No. 16 Warren Central (62), Western (101), Indianapolis Cathedral (108), Kokomo (146), Tipton (223), Peru (237), Hamilton Heights (243), North Miami (251), Logansport (253), Maconaquah (268), Northwestern (284) and Southwood (302). Eastern was incomplete.
Noblesville’s Blake Dircksen won the race in 16:30.
Corey Scott paced the Panthers in a time of 17:20 to finish eighth. Zac Martinez was 20th (17:43) with Kody Harmon a spot behind (17:44). Chris Love was 25th (18:04) and Austin Young was 27th (18:07).
"I thought they ran extremely well," Western coach Joe Orr said. "We did beat Cathedral and Kokomo, obviously that’s good. Our team time keeps getting better each week and I was real pleased with Corey Scott’s individual effort. He beat all the other Howard County runners and [Mid-Indiana Conference] runners. Kody Harmon also had a good race individually for us."
Ian Holtson led Kokomo in 17th (17:35), followed by Brandon Sheline in 23rd (17:53), Devin White in 24th (17:58), Jordan Lee in 40th (18:40); and Vince Calabro in 42nd (18:44), a spot ahead of teammate Mason McGovern who had the same time.
Brady Butler led Tipton in 19th place (17:42) followed by Aron Crawford in 45th (18:47), Levi Bess in 47th (18:55), Sam Hunt in 55th (19:29) and Micah Woolf in 47th (19:50)
Aaron Garretson led Peru with an 11th-place finish in (17:28). Shannon Garretson was 28th (18:07), Jordan Garretson was 52nd (19:17), Nathan Gillespie was 68th (20:41) and Dylan Marburger was 78th (21:53).
"We did fairly well," Peru coach Gary Downing said. "Conditions weren’t the greatest with all the rain. This is kind of a preview for the [MIC meet] and Western must be the team to beat on the boys side. Hopefully we can keep improving and getting our times down."
Bryce Comp took 31st to lead Maconaquah (18:12), followed by Adam Crawshaw in 41st (18:41), Jacob Bingham in 56th (19:46), Zach Butts in 64th (20:18) and Chad Gregory in 76th (21:34).
Kory Kennedy took 14th in 17:31 to lead Northwestern. Sam Freeman was 37th (18:27), Joe Williams was 65th (20:20), Chris Fox was 81st (22:21) and Steve Vas was 87th (23:18). "
"All seven of my boys had season bests with five of the seven setting personal bests," Stevens said. "That’s something for us to keep building on. Kory Kennedy ran a very strong race in the mud and Sam Freeman had another strong effort, as well as our senior Joe Williams."
The Comets were one runner shy of a full squad. Cody Young was 51st in 19:12, Hansen Martin was 54th (19:20), Ryan Horner was 59th (19:49) and Anthony Laughman was 77th (21.21).