The course was new and so were the winners at the Hamilton Cross Country Invitational on Saturday. With the state Class A golf tournament being held at the Hamilton Golf Course, the cross-country meet was moved to the soccer fields at Hamilton High School. There are no hills on this course and the runners clocked good times.
Hamilton won the boys team scoring and finished first and second. Cameron Meikle won with a time of 15:58.23. Kole Tison was second with 16:14.36. Other top finishers for Hamilton were Karill Apedaile in fourth (16:24.61); Tanner Lehr (17.04.62) in sixth; Jason Rogers (17:17.66) in ninth; and Matt Wilson was 12 (17:26.24).
Corvallis finished in second place. Ronald Venema was third with a time of 16:15.34. Josh Jessop was fifth (17:03.02), Carson Jessop was eighth (17:16.29), Joel Haas was 11th (17:18.87), Andrew Jessop was 15th (17:33.96), and Brennan Williams was 20th (18:08.09).
Darby’s Evan Duggan was 17th with a time of 17:53.72.
Amelia Gardner of Corvallis won the girls’ race with a time of 19:26.59. Lilly Lang of Darby was right behind her with a time of 19:32.74. Albany Jessop (19:39.11) of Corvallis, Jaycie Schmalz (19:40.79) of Hamilton and Kaitlin Stromberg (20:03.63) of Hamilton rounded out the top five finishers.
Corvallis won the team scoring with 32 points. Polson finished second followed by Hamilton, Dillon, and Ronan. Corvallis had five more runners that finished in the top 20. They were: 8 – Lynn Reyono, 20:42.97; 9- Mary Royce, 20:27.22; 11-Grace Kurfman, 21:08.47; 18-Alday Dunn, 21:53.42; 20-Darci Lezois, 22:12.37.
Top 20 finishers for Hamilton were: Hannah Peterson in 14th with 21:29.10, and Tess G-Clancy in 16th place with 21:39.71.
Stevensville’s Heidi Lykins finished 19th with a time of 22:06.31.