Girls Race

Eastern's girls cross country team won the big-school Class 3A division of the New Prairie Invitational Saturday with a score of 76. Northridge placed second at 159. Eastern elected to move up to the large-school division for the meet Bethany Neeley was the top Comet with a time of 18:18 for fourth place. Brittany Neeley came in ninth (19:02). Carly Jones was 18th (19:40). Sarah Wagner posted a time of 19:44 for 20th, and Avery Ewing came in 28th (19:56).

"We just ran very well [Saturday]," Eastern coach Brandon Mink said. "I knew we werecapable of having a big shot at the big trophy. The girls beat all of my expectations up and down the line up. Jones, Wagner and Ewing ran in a pack, and those three ran great together. They fed off of each other, and they do a great job doing that.

Northwestern placed fourth in the Class 2A race with a score of 355. Tigers' coach Dave Stevens was very happy with his teams performance.

"We had 13 girls run, and 11 of the 13 had either a course, season or career best," Stevens said. "I couldn't be happy with them. They all took advantage of the fast course and the great weather that we had Saturday."

Taryn Thor led Northwestern with a 23rd place in 20:17. Karly Sprouse was 43rd (20:58), Kendra Gingerich was 74th (21:49), Heidi Freeman came in 102nd (22:49), and Rachel Johns was 113th (23:13).

Boys Race

Western finished 14th in the 34-team 2A division with 391 points, with 15 of its 22 runners finishing in personal-best times. The Panthers competed without top runner Matt Griller, who was nursing a minor injury.

West Lafayette won with 83 points, followed by Fort Wayne Concordia (92), Rochester (115), Wheeler (168) and Andrean (210). Concordia's Zach Panning won the race in 15:27

Riley Worl led Western with a 30th-place finish in 17:21. Jacob Bradshaw followed in 66th (18:04), Caleb Maddox was 95th (18:24), Austin Elliott was 101st (18:28), Auston Davenport finished 110th (18:33), Riley Carter was 112th (18:35) and Mark Boss was 121st (18:42). The 2A race featured 214 runners.

"Matt bruised his heels so he's out for a little while," Western coach Gary Jewell said. "We have one of the best trainers on our staff and if he listens he'll be back in there fairly quickly.

"Nineteen of our guys ran season's bests [Saturday]. It was funny during the race, I was sitting there thinking we were going slow, not fast enough at the start But seeing all the PRs, I needed to remember we're not looking to peak at the New Prairie Invitational, but at the Culver Regional and New Prairie semi-state, which is still a few weeks down road. We have room for improvement, but our guys are starting to show they can step up."

Northwestern finished 19th overall in Class 2A with a score of 428.

Charlie Neher led the Tigers with a 35th-place finish in 17:23. Zach Duranto was 44th (17:36), Andrew Fackler came in 82nd (18:20), Taylor McLain was 122nd (18:48), and Shad Jakes was 145th (19:19).

"I am pretty confident that this is the fastest seven runners that I ever had here at Northwestern," Northwestern coach Dave Stevens said. "All seven ran very hard, and even my junior varsity team had personal best times. We were really happy [Saturday]."

Eastern had an incomplete team. Lewis Duke placed sixth with a time of 16:28. Adam Schaaf came in 17th (16:47). Sam Higdon was 109th (18:32), and Kevin Zheng took 154th (19:41).

"Lewis and Adam did an outstanding job of moving up over the second half of the race, they looked sharp," Mink said. "Higdon took a minute off his best time, so that was outstanding as well."