The women's and men's cross country teams competed at the Roy Griak Invite in Minneapolis on Friday afternoon.  The women would finish 25th overall led by Paityn Noe who finished 22nd overall with a time of 19:27.4.  Ava Vance would finish 121st in a time of 21:08.7.

The men finished 37th overall led by Seth Pencook who finished 100th overall in a time of 18:42.2.  Trent Payne ran in a time of 19:21.2 good enough for a 170th place finish.

Comments From Head Coach Scott Barth:

"We made the trip north to the Griak for the 2nd time and the field did not disappoint. There was tough competition which included teams from as far away as Tennessee and Kentucky, but our athletes performed well in 2 huge fields of runners.

The girls finished in 25th place out of 50 teams that were entered. We had strong showings out of our top 2 runners with Paityn Noe placing 22nd out of the 397 runners in the field. Ava Vance finished 121st in the standings to get us off to a good start.  Next came a great bounce-back performance by freshman Annika Larson who finished in 150th place for the Bombers.  Kate Huisinga ran next, placing 190th.  Wrapping up our scoring and team were Brooke Loewe, Brynn Wilson and Ava Richardson placing in a tight pack at 228th, 230th and 233rd overall. 

In looking at the times, I would say that it was nice seeing freshman Annika Larson have a good race coming off a disappointing time at Heartland. She was much more relaxed and focused on this race. I would also point out the performance of freshman Ava Richardson who was 1 of 2 runners for us that ran faster on the Griak course than they did on the Heartland course last week. We have a really solid group of freshmen this season and they are getting better as the season is progressing. They are and will be a huge key for us as we make a final push at the end of the season. We have the stabilizers in Paityn Noe and Ava Vance in the front of our races, and the experience of seniors Kate Huisinga and Brooke Loewe, we will be a very competitive team by season's end. 

I was also proud of what the boys showed up today. We were missing a consistent scorer for us in Bradley Sage who did not make the trip due to illness, but we had other runners step in and run pretty well in his absence.

Seth Pencook led the men with a 100th place finish among 445 runners. Next, came Trent Payne who is making a good comeback from illness with a 17th place finish. Chase also bounced back from a subpar race at Heartland placing 226th. Freshman Zack Charter and Logan Huntrods closed out our team scoring, placing great races placing 257th and 269th overall. A big shout out to Ian Godbold and Braden Kubichek for stepping into the 2 remaining varsity spots for the first time this season and running tough races off 'the bench.' Their effort was outstanding in a tough race.

I think we ran a pretty solid race on the boys side. It was nice seeing both Trent and Chase healthy again and back on track. Seth is a very steady runner for us and he is ready for a breakout performance soon. Like I said above, I thought our freshmen Zack and Logan ran well. They are getting a lot of varsity experience under tough circumstances this season and that will serve them well in the future. The upperclassmen have done a nice job of incorporating them into the team and created good bonds with them. That is encouraging for us as a team heading into the end of the season and into next year. Ian Godbold has been sidelined a good share of the season with some minor injuries. Hopefully this will get him back on track because he has the potential to help us out some more on varsity. We are looking forward to seeing what these guys can do at Ogden on Tuesday. I expect a good performance out of them."

The Bombers are back in action on Tuesday, September 28 when they travel to the Ogden Invitational.  The meet will feature the junior varsity and varsity and will start at 5:00 PM.

ROY GRIAK INVITATIONAL WOMEN'S INDIVIDUAL TIMES

22 Paityn Noe, 19:27.4

101 Ava Vance, 21:08.7

159 Annika Larson, 21:37.8

190 Kate Huisinga, 22:00.5

228 Brooke Loewe, 22:33.2

230 Brynn Wilson, 22:34.1

233 Erica Espinoza, 22:37.3

ROY GRIAK INVITATIONAL MEN'S INDIVIDUAL TIMES

100 Seth Pencook, 18:42.2

170 Trent Payne 19:21.2

226 Chase Brekke, 20:02.8

251 Zack Charter, 20:27.9

269 Logan Huntrods, 20:49.7

309 Ian Godbold, 22:22.7

322 Braden Kubichek, 23:00.3