Cross country team runs as a pack

The Mountain Home Tigers found the competition stiff at last Friday's Payette River Invitational Cross Country meet at Cobblestone Park, hosted by Emmett.

Borah won the meet, with all five runners placing in the top 11. They had 29 points. Caldwell was a distant second with 89, followed by Centennial, 93, Nampa with 105, Timberline, 140, Emmett, 203, Greenleaf, 209, Idaho City, 234, and Mountain Home, 250.

Charlie Blacklock was the first Tiger across the finish line, running a 20:46 to finish 44th. Four back with a time of an even 21 minutes was Matt Bernyk. Brett Kohring was four back of Bernyk with a time of 21:05. Garrett Wood ran a 21:35, finishing 57th, a second and spot ahead of Jordan Mason, who was one ahead of Nico Pinque who ran a 21:57.

Mason Stevens (26:39) and Andrew Trayer (34:26) ran in the JV race.

"We're running as a pack," said Tiger cross country coach Doug Root of his boys runners. "We just need to move our pack up a little ways. Right now Charlie Blacklock is our leader, but he's only running about a minute faster than our number six runner, so if we can move the pack forward a minute and a half or two minutes, the boys are going to do very, very well."

Mountain Home did not have a full girls team, running just four girls in the varsity meet.

Jessie Furst finished ninth, with a new personal best time of 21:51. Jessi Cameron ran a 25:49, which placed her 43rd, two ahead of Jannica Quintal, who had her best time of 26:34. Piper Coffin was one back with her best time of the year at 27:07.

Sarah Hyde (30:39) and Cindy Blacklock (31:06) ran in the JV race.

"We showed a lot of personal improvement," said Coach Root. "Our little freshman, Jessie Furst, got ninth place, in the varsity girls division, and only two people from our division (conference) beat her. She's really looking like she's going to go somewhere this year.

"The rest of the girls, we had a very strong showing, we had a couple PRs. Piper Coffin came close to her PR from last year, and so did Jessi Cameron. Jannica Quintal did set a PR, so I was real pleased with that.

"Our JV girls, Sarah Hyde set an all-time PR for her. Her goal this year is to break the 30-minute mark and she's almost there right now, and Cindy Blacklock ran really, really well today, so I'm very pleased with our performances."

The Tigers will run at the Bob Firman Invitational at Eagle Island State Park on Saturday.

"We're not going to run in the varsity division there," said Root,

"We're just not quite ready for it. They have a freshman race and I'm going to run all my freshmen in the freshman race to see how they can do, and my juniors I'm going to run in the junior varsity division.

"We're taking the seventh- and eighth-grade down with us. The junior high girls have a chance to do very, very well, and the boys are showing some improvement. We know we have some talent coming up and we're going to take them along and do what we can with them to bring them into the fold ."