The women's and men's cross country teams hosted the Mike Carr Invitational on Monday night.  The women fiished second with 60 team points.  Solon won the meet scoring 36 team points.  Paityn Noe was the individual winner running in a time of 19:33.2.  Ava Vance finished fifth in a time of 21:02.1 and Annike Larson was 13th finishing at 22:11.3.

The men finished sixth overall scoring 192 team points.  North Polk won the meet scoring 45 points.  Seth Pencook paced the Bombers finishing 21st running in a time of 19:07.8 and Bradley Sage finished 39th with a time of 20:23.

Comments From Head Coach Scott Barth:

WOMEN:

"What a great night of running tonight! The meet featured eight ranked boys teams and nine ranked girls teams - not to mention 20+ individual runners. So the competition was fierce and a good check point for us as we progress through the season.

Again, I think we had a mixed bag of performances in our girls varsity race. #1 ranked Paityn Noe took the title with solid performance beating #2 ranked Ainsley Erzen of Carlisle by 43 seconds. It was a great battle up until the last 1000 meters when Paityn broke the race open for the W. Ava Vance also ran a good race placing 9th in the combined team competition and 5th in our class. She went out well and steadily moved up throughout the 5K race. I also think Annika Larson ran a solid race in her freshman season placing 13th for the Bombers. We were expecting a tighter pack with Annika, but let that slip somewhat with Kate Huisinga, Brooke Loewe and Brynn Wilson coming in 20th, 21st and 22nd places. I know the girls were disappointed in their running tonight and am sure they will come back strong in our next meet on Saturday in Pella. 

We would have placed 4th in the combined A&B class results behind #2 Solon, #3 DCG and #17 class 4A ranked Indianola. We would have however beaten #4 North Polk, #5 Carlise and #6 Pella - so, I can't say we ran a bad race, but we left some points on the course that I know we can improve on over the remainder of the season. We will do our best to close the gap in between our 2-3 and rest of the pack. I truly believe we could have our 3-4-5-and 6 runners all running together. If we can do that, we will be even better than we were tonight and make another run at a state title. The teams that did beat us tonight are definitely state title contenders and we hope to work our way back up."

MEN:

"The boys were missing our steady top 2-3 runner Trent Payne tonight as he was not feeling well and did not compete. The boys had had a very good week of practices heading into the meet tonight and we had talked about packing our runners up, but that sort of fell apart without the leadership that Trent has. That being said, we still ran fairly well and were able to finish in the middle of the pack in a talented field. We were once again led by Seth Pencook who placed 21st for the Bombers. Bradley Sage ran a steady race and worked his way up steadily to place 39th. Chase Brekke had an off race without having his running partner Trent in the line-up placing 41st. Freshman Zack Charter and Logan Huntrods ran close by placing 43rd and 48th overall. 

Again, we were showing signs of progress at the Winterset meet and then in the remaining practices over the remainder of the week. So, it didn't work out for us tonight, but we will keep plugging away the remainder of this week and hopefully we will get everyone healthy again so we can give it our best shot!"

The Bombers are back in action on Saturday, September 18 when they travel to the Heartland Classic.  The meet will feature the varsity and will start at 11:50 AM.

MIKE CARR INVITATIONAL WOMEN'S TEAM SCORES (CLASS B)

1. Solon, 36

2. Ballard, 60

3. North Polk, 90

4. Des Moines Christian, 117

5. Roland-Story, 125

6. Atlantic, 128

7. Iowa Falls-Alden, 178

8. Nevada, 219

9. Madrid, 246

9. Nodaway Valley, 246

11. Woodward-Granger, 296

MIKE CARR INVITATIONAL WOMEN'S INDIVIDUAL TIMES

1 Paityn Noe, 19:33.2

5 Ava Vance, 21:02.1

13 Annika Larson, 22:11.3

20 Kate Huisinga, 23:00

21 Brooke Loewe, 23:00.7

22 Brynn Wilson, 23:04.3

38 Erica Espinoza, 24:52.8

MIKE CARR INVITATIONAL MEN'S TEAM SCORES (CLASS B)

1. North Polk, 45

2. Solon, 53

3. Des Moines Christian, 77

4. Atlantic, 124

5. Nevada, 144

6. Ballard, 192

7. Iowa Falls-Alden, 205

8. Eagle Grove, 217

9. Roland-Story, 219

10. Madrid, 225

11. Nodaway Valley, 272

12. Woodward-Granger, 321

MIKE CARR INVITATIONAL MEN'S INDIVIDUAL TIMES

21 Seth Pencook, 19:07.8

39 Bradley Sage, 20:23

41 Chase Brekke, 20:27.1

43 Zack Charter, 20:37.5

48 Logan Huntrods, 21:30.7

71 Ian Godbold, 23:52.5

72 Braden Kubichek, 23:53.6