EATON — Eaton’s girls cross country team placed four runners in the top 10, and six in the top 17 en route to winning its own invitational on Saturday, Sept. 16 at Fort St. Clair Park.

The Eagles totaled 47 points to outdistance runner-up Cincinnati Mercy McCauley by 20 points in the Purple race.

Eaton’s boys finished 5th with 129 points.

“We had a great day to race with ideal race conditions. The course was in great condition, although I would have liked to have had a little more rain earlier in the week,” Eaton coach Randy McKinney said. “The City of Eaton, like always, does an excellent job helping prepare Fort St. Clair Park for the influx of teams and athletes from across Southwest Ohio and Southeast Indiana that attend our Eaton Invitational.”

McKinney praised the volunteers who helped make the meet possible.

“We have a great group of volunteers that help prepare for the meet in the days prior and help with the administration of the meet on race day,” he said. “The Eaton Cross Country parents that step up and do all they do are key factors in the success of the meet as well. We are blessed to have all those individuals behind us to make it all happen. It was a great crowd, solid field of competition and an outstanding cross country atmosphere.”

McKinney said both his teams are young this season.

“Both teams are very young, so each meet means a lot when it comes to gaining experience as an individual and team. Both teams are a positive work in progress and keep getting a little better each time out,” he said.

The girls were led by Emily Haynes, who finished 6th overall with a time of 20:57.4. Addison Guiley was 8th in 21:28.9, Josie Eilerman was 9th in 21:52and Brynlee Hamilton was 10th in 21:55.8. Cami McCloud finished 14th in 22:19.7 and Elise Simmons was 17th in 22:29.8.

“Our high school Lady Eagles did an outstanding job running a great team race,” McKinney said. “Our goal is to get a little better each time out both individually and as a team. Our time gap between our 1-5 runners improved to 1:21 while our 1-6 runner time gap improved to a season best of 1:31.

For the boys, Tanner Davis was 6th in 17:15. Jack Richardson placed 12th in 17:42.9, Nick Laycox was 26th in 18:17.7, Michael Fomin was 45th in 19:14.2, Bradley Gifford was 46th in 19:15.3, Dylan Stanley was 47th in 19:16.7 and Zachary Laycox was 64th in 19:45.5.

“Our high school men’s team placed 5th overall in a very tough field of competition. Individually we are continuing to improve while we are dealing with a few team injuries,” McKinney said. “Our goal going into the meet with both teams was just to compete and let times, places, team scores, etc. take care of itself.”

In the boys Gold race Preble Shawnee finished third with 86 points. Milton-Union won the meet with 28 points and Hamilton Badin was second with 42.

For Preble Shawnee, Trent Geise finished 11th in 18:38.5. Case Roell was 12th in 18:44.5 and Dennis Hall was 13th in 18:49.5. Mason Shrout placed 32nd in 20:03.6 and Taylor Bradley rounded out the scoring with a 40th place finish in 20:38.4.

For National Trail, Brayan Lee was 21st in 19:13 and Tucker Denlinger was 27th in 19:28.3.

In the girls Gold race, National Trail was 5th with 126 points and Preble Shawnee was 7th with 133. Marion Local won the race with 45 points. Hamilton Badin was second with 50.

For Trail, Judith Denlinger finished 19th in 24:10.5. Gretchen Murphy was 20th in 24:16.5. Sydney Whalen was 29th in 25:04.5, Ollie Mason was 33rd in 25:38.1 and Taryn Rucci was 53rd in 29:47.

For Shawnee, Bella Adkins was 14th in 23:27.2. She was followed by Madison Moore, 30th in 25:11.9, Faith Jessie, 34th in 25:42, Valerie Whitson, 35th in 25:47.3 and Sally White, 48th in 28:14.4.

Eaton will host the Preble County meet on Wednesday, Sept. 20 at the Eaton Country Club.