JEFFERSON — On a course head coach Jerry Meinerts described as a “muddy mess,” multiple Collins-Maxwell/Baxter runners posted some of their best times at the Greene County Invitational Thursday.
Mark Deutsch and Colin Thomson posted the fastest times they’ve ran on the course in their careers to lead the boys team to a third-place finish out of 12 teams. In the girls race, the Raiders’ top three finishers — Heather Jessen, Winter Brown and Chantel Maxwell — all recorded their fastest times of the season as CMB placed fifth out of 10 teams.
“I was really proud of our girls team tonight,” Meinerts said. “They ran with a purpose and ran some good times.”
CMB’s top seven girl finishers ran times under 20 minutes, a goal the Raiders couldn’t accomplish in their first two meets and something Meinerts was particularly proud of on Thursday.
Jessen placed 12th in 17:40 while Brown followed in 14th with a time of 17:48. Maxwell crossed the finish line 29th in 18:56. Behind her was Anna Jones (31st, 19:20), Chasity Moody (32nd, 19:35), Whitney Spencer (34th, 19:40) and Veronica Condon (41st, 19:59).
“Heather and Winter ran great tonight,” Meinerts said. “They worked well together and pushed each other to finish up in the pack.”
The girls team ran without Stephanie Twohey, who was out with an illness, and totalled 118 points.
Panorama won the girls race with 39 points.
In the boys race, Deutsch paced the Raiders again and finished second for the second time this season. His time Thursday was 17:36.
Thomson joined his teammate in the top-10 by placing sixth in 18:38.
The Raiders then had a gap too wide to overcome in the team standings as the rest of their runners finished between 19th and 40th. Calvin Jones was first among that group in 19:29, followed by Max Van Maanen (27th, 19:52), Eric Hall Flooden (33rd, 20:03), Evan Bianchi (36th, 20:24) and Carter Fricke (40th, 20:29).
“We didn’t run as well as we wanted tonight,” Meinerts said of the boys squad. “It wasn’t from lack of effort, it just wasn’t there for us ... We had six guys run faster than we did last year at this point, so I can’t fault the guys for that. We just ran into a couple of really good teams tonight that ran better than us.”
The Raiders finished with 87 points, not too far behind meet champion Southeast Valley (71 points) and second-place Ogden (78).
“We just need to continue closing that gap between our top two guys and our next pack,” Meinerts said. “We are ahead of where we were last year, and we will keep getting better.”