The Blue Earth Area cross country teams traveled to Fairmont on Friday night, Aug. 26, to run in the Early-Bird Invite held at the Fairmont High School athletic fields.

Marshall won the boys’ portion of the meet with a score of 41. The host Cardinals grabbed second place with 71. Mountain Lake Area/Comfrey was third with 111 points. The Bucs finished 10th with 256 points.

BEA’s boys team was led by Angel Martinez who ran the 4,000-meter varsity course in 16:36 to finish in 40th place.

Devin Haase had a time of 17:49 to finish 58th and Seth Mathews completed the course in 18:26 to finish 65th.

Also running for the Bucs were Marcus Eckles (20:27), Gibson Haase (21:12), Manav Chaudhari (21:43), Jerry Passe (22:04), Shane Levenhagen (22:47), Julian Rodriguez (23:17) and Eli Paz (23:17).

“Angel improved his time from the same meet last year by 30 seconds,” BEA head coach Peter Koenig said. “Devin had a fine time for a 4K.”

Jace Casey competed in the 2,000 meter junior high race for the Bucs. He finished in 13th place with a time of 8:53.

The Buccaneer girls were unable to field a complete team so they did not have a team score. Marshall won the girls’ meet with 20 points. Jackson County Central placed second with 67 and Fairmont was third with 103.

Lola Lundquist covered the 4,000-meter course in 23:29 to finish 10 seconds ahead of teammate Leah Becker who ran the race in 23:39. Mya Steinhauer finished in 25:26.

In the 2,000-meter junior high race, Aubrey Woodwick covered the course in 8:48 to place sixth and Sidney Eitzmann posted a time of 9:29.

“Aubrey and Sidney both flew through the 2K race,” Koenig commented. “They both posted good numbers to start the year.”

The cross country teams were in Mountain Lake for a meet on Friday, Sept. 2. Check next week’s edition of the Faribault County Register for the results.