Runners place at Mountain Home meet

The Mountain Home boys and girls cross country teams both finished in the number 10 spot at Thursday's Mountain Home Invitational cross country meet at Desert Canyon Golf Course in Mountain Home.

Mountain View won the boys meet with 29 points. Kuna was a distant second with 78 points, Middleton third with 103, followed by Elko at 115, Skyview with 116, Wood River had 171, Columbia scored 177, Twin Falls was 185, North Star Charter came in at 287, Mountain Home had 288 and Canyon Ridge and Victory Charter both finished with 289.

Kyle Pendleton led the Mountain Home boys, finishing 31st in a time of 18 minutes, 59.70 seconds. Josh Robinson was 46th, running the course in 19:28.50. John Goodell was 63rd in 20:21.00. Nolan Pasqualetti finished 70th in 20:38.90 and Christopher Payne finished 89th in 28:06.70.

Mountain View also won the girls race, with 22 points. Skyview and Kuna were a distant second and third, both with 112 points. Twin Falls finished fourth with 17, followed by Elko with 127, Middleton at 141, Columbia with 150, Canyon Ridge at 166, Wood River scored 203 and Mountain Home finished last with 257.

Alexis Georgianna was the first Mountain Home girl to finish, coming in 42nd in a time of 24:54.90. Emily Lampman was 51st, running a 25:26.30. Elisabeth Stephens was 55th, coming in at 25:54.70. Whitney Sandberg finished 66th in a time of 26:51.40 and Bianca Shrader finished 73rd in a time of 32:09.20.

Mountain Home Tiger cross country coach Doug Root thought, all things considered, his team did well.

"The Mountain Home Invitational is an extremely tough meet," the coach said. "Mountain View was here one week after competing against the number one team in the nation. They pretty well dominated things, but my kids ran well.

"I was real pleased with Kyle Pendleton and Alexis Georgianna. They ran very well," the coach added. "Both of them are freshmen and were my top runners for our team for this meet. We were without Anthony (DeSantis) because he had a soccer meet that day.

"I think the boys ran well as a team and had a fairly good grouping. The girls continue to improve and are getting there. They continue to improve each week."

The Tigers will run at the Bob Firman Invitational at Eagle Island State Park this Saturday. Coach Root indicated he would be splitting up his runners for the meet.

"Our freshmen kids will run in the freshman race at 9 a.m., and the rest of them are going to run in the JV race, which will be around 3 p.m.," the coach said "It's a long day. There's going to be 95 teams at that race.

"I think our freshmen will be competitive in the freshman division, but the others I think will fair better running the JV race instead of the varsity race," he added.