The Columbus Junction Cross Country team ran at the Benton invite this weekend and both came out in eighth place.

The boy’s race was highlighted by the 15th place finish by Eli Sents, running a time of 18:04, and Josh Keller was 19th in 18:18.

Other finishers for the boy’s were Anthony Garcia in 56th in a time of 20:17, Adrian Santos in 62nd in a time of 22:01 and Tony Ramos in 63rd in a time of 22:07. Williamsburg won the meet with 56, while the Wildcats had 201.

On the girl’s side they also finished eighth with their top runner being Taylor Hills in 23rd place with a time of 16:55. Other top finishers for the girl’s were Claire Hamilton in 50th in a time of 18:20, Yvette Aguilar in 52nd in a time of 18:59, Ashley Canny in 60th in 19:14 and Grace Chapman in 64th in a time of 19:49.

Mount Vernon- Lisbon won the meet with 58, the Wildcats had 223. Columbus Junction head coach Steve Riley said this was a good meet to measure his team from where they started this season.

“Normally you don’t care about times, but in this meet I do, because I know it is a true measurement of the course and we like to compare our times from last year at this time and everybody for the most part was down and better than that so we’re getting better and it was just a good meet overall,” Riley said.

Columbus Junction runs against on Thursday at Ft. Madison.