Western's boys, Eastern's girls lead local contingent

Boys Meet

Western's boys cross country team took 12th place out of 32 schools in the middle-sized class of the New Prairie Invitational Saturday. Matt Grider led Western in llth place in a time of 16:50. Jacob Bradshaw was 44th (17:47), Austin Elliott was 61st (18:06), Braxton Bagwell was 84th (18:24) and Abel Barrera was 112th (18:50).

"While we had 10 guys run personal bests, we sort of got swallowed up by the pack in the first 200 meters and spent the rest of the race trying to fight our way out of that," Western coach Gary Jewell said. "Matt had a really good race. At the one [kilometer] mark he was about 70th place, and was still 45th at the mile. He had a nice, consistent race. He seems to be really coming back from his injury.

"We're making consistent improvement, which is kind of what we're looking for at the moment."

Girls race

Running in the small-school race Western was 11th (313), Eastern was 12th (323), and Carroll was 18th (506).

Corianne Myer led Western in 17th (20.26), Krissy Durr was 63rd (22:00), Erin Weber was 66th (22:05), Cara Love was 86th (22:28) and Bre Nicholas was 95th (22:39).

"Overall we did a great job," Western coach Joni McCracken said. "We had three girls run [personal records]. Specifically, Cara Love had an excellent race. She's running a couple minutes faster than what she was last year at this time."

For the Comets, Brittany Neeley was sixth in 19:33 Emily Wilcox was 35th (21:13), An Rinaldo was 73rd (22:15), Bailey Pressey was 104th (22:50) and Cambry Martin was 123rd

Bethany Neeley ran as an individual in the large-school race. She took 27th in 19:04.

"All of them ran season bests and almost everybody got personal bests," Eastern coach Brandon Mink said. "It was a super day to run, perfect weather conditions, fast course, great competition. We did very well We had a lot of significant drops in personal bests and we're coming together pretty well here in time for conference coming up in just over a week.

Bridgett Peden led Carroll, taking 20th in 20-42 She was followed by Maria Lewis (59th 21-52) Stephanie Strawcutter (139th, 23-51) Jackie Tussinger (148th, 24:1 1) and Storm Dreadfulwater (179th, 25:22).