PREP ROUNDOUP: Oak Hill Invitational

Girls race

Western finished third with 70 points behind champion Jay County (42) and Eastbrook (49). The host Golden Eagles finished fourth (88) while Tipton (170) rounded out the top five.

Eastbrook's Sophie Seward took overall top honors in 19:46. Western's Emma Nixon (21:26) and Erin Knepley (21:42) finished third and fourth, respectively, while Nicole Hampshire (ninth, 22:34) also added an top-10 finish for the Panthers.

Jessica Love (27th, 25:46) and Olivia Nixon (31st, 26:00) rounded out Western's top five.

"We're pleased with where we were at [Tuesday]," Western coach Joni McCracken said. "We bettered our score at this meet from last year. We had our No. 4 girl get hurt, and the girls stepped up and performed well. We were shooting for second place, but to end up third was a good job. The times were a bit slow but it was very hot, so I'm really pleased with where we ended up."

Boys Meet

Western took three of the top four spots overall, and had all of its top seven finish in the top 20, but finished second to host Oak Hill by two points, 32-34. Tipton (100), Eastbrook (112) and Peru (132) rounded out the top five.

Matt Grider (17:06) and Riley Worl (17:57) went 1 -2 for the Panthers, while Jacob Bradshaw (18:18) followed in fourth.

Austin Elliott finished 13th in' 19:23 and Caleb Maddox followed in 14th at 19:26. Braxton Bagwell (16th, 19:33) and Cesar Terron (19th, 19:45) also cracked the top 20 for Western.

"Oak Hill is ranked 11th in our class and we took them to the wire," Western coach Gary Jewell said. "Their coach thought we won, and I feel like we ran a smart race. Oak Hill's guys always go out fast. Grider was 20th at the 800-meter mark and won the race by 50 seconds. This is probably the smartest race we've run in a while. We did a little experiment on Bradshaw. We had him go out slower than normal and he, winds up fourth. If he runs his normal race be probably finish es in 20th. Running smarter races is part of the kids growing up.

"It was frustrating that we didn't win, but that's as close as you can come to beating a quality team."