The Columbus Junction cross country team ran at the Clear Creek invitational last night and had a third place finish for the girl’s team, thanks in part to a great run by Taylor Hills.

Hills had a 10th place finish in a time of 17:05. Finishing behind her was Ashley Canny in 22 with a time of 18:38; Zulema Camarena in 25th in a time of 18:57; Yvette Aguilar in 26th in a time of 19:09 and Grace Chapman in 30th in a time of 19:41.

Head coach Steve Riley said this meet was one that the girls rose to the occasion and met the challenge that he gave them.

“It was a really good meet, we kind of issued a challenge to the girls last week, we have some tough goals, but what we think are reachable goals for the rest of the season and we just wanted to make a little bit of progress at a time to reach those goals and we really felt like we did last night,” Riley said.

The girls finished with 113 points in third, while Vinton-Shellsburg won the meet with 27 and Mid-Prairie was second with 69.

On the boy’s side, they were without their top two runners, but had a good run by Josh Keller to lead the with a 14th place finish in a time of 18:10. Other placers for the boys were Anthony Garcia in 32nd in a time of 20:20; Tony Ramos in 36th in a time of 20:55; Adrian Santos in 37th in a time of 20
:57 and Dalton Howell in 45th in a time of 22:53.

The boys finished in fifth place with 164 points, while Clear Creek Amana was first with 43 and Mid-Prairie was third with 57.

Columbus runs again next week at the Mike Jay Invite.