Cross-country squads place at Mountain Home event

Thursday, October 20, 2011
Mountain Home's varsity girls keep pace with the pack during the Mountain Home Invitational cross country meet, held Thursday afternoon at the Desert Canyon Golf Course. The Lady Tigers placed third overall during the yearly meet, trailing the girls from Twin Falls by just one point. Photo by Brian S. Orban

Mountain Home hosted the annual Mountain Home Invitational cross country meet at Desert Canyon Golf Course last Thursday, where the girls came in third and the boys finished in fifth place.

Jerome won the girls competition with 40 points. Twin Falls was second with 59, a point ahead of Mountain Home's 60. Vale, Ore., was fourth with 97, Nampa fifth with 114, and Wood River was sixth with 119.

Keesha Janis-Gibson led the Mountain Home girls with a sixth-place effort and a new personal best time of 21 minutes, 29 seconds. Sarah Richins finished eighth at 21:35, Kacee Cameron 11th at 21:54, Arisha Karren 17th at 22:39, Arial Groene 18th at 22:47 and Shelby Henrick 30th at 24 minutes flat.

Burley High School won the boys competition with 37 points. Twin Falls was second with 46 while Jerome came in third with 68. Nampa finished fourth with 98 points while and Mountain Home ended in fifth with 113.

Mike Price led the Mountain Home boys with a fourth-place finish in a time of 17 minutes, 29 seconds. Taylor Croft came in 27th at 18:38, Jon Dodge was 30th at 18:59, Andy Croft 31st at 19:01, Peyton Cline 35th at 19:46, Daniel Courtright 36th at 19:49 and Steven Kreche 38th at 20:41.

Alicia Reynolds led the Mountain Home junior varsity girls, finishing sixth with a time of 25 minutes, 2 seconds. Tracy Gordon was right behind, finishing seventh with a new personal best of 25:09. Rachel Goodman was eighth at 25:16, Aundrea Dickenson was 12th with a new personal record of 26:23 while Erika Cook was 28th at 30:36.

Cody Ashby led the Tiger boys in the J.V. meet, coming in sixth with a time of 20 minutes, 37 seconds. Nolan Pasqualetti finished 16th at 21:29, Andrew Turner was 30th at 23:19, Connor McCellan was 33rd at 24 minutes flat, Cody Price was 39th at 26:42 while Dylan Goodall came in 41st at 27:38.

"We had tough competition here today," said Tiger cross country coach Doug Root. "We had four teams here from the Magic Valley. Only three of them get to go to state, and all three are ranked in the top five in the state right now, so they're very good, and Nampa's running well this year in the boys."

The Tigers run at the District III 4A cross country meet at Eagle Island State Park on Thursday, Oct. 20.

"There's nine teams in our district this year, so we get to take the top five teams and the top 21 individuals qualify as individuals (at Eagle Island)," said Coach Root. "Our girls have a great shot at getting (to state) again."

Meanwhile, the boys' squad faces "the race of their lives," the coach added.

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