By John Rittenhouse
The Hills-Beaver Creek-Ellsworth cross country program produced team and individual champions at the Murray County Central Invitational in Slayton Tuesday.
The boys' varsity and boys' junior varsity squads claimed team titles during the event.
Patriot runners also secured individual championships in the boys' junior varsity and girls' junior varsity races.
H-BC-E boys scored 65 points to lead a seven-team field in team competition.
Luverne (69), Worthington (78), Mountain Lake-Butterfield-Odin (83) Adrian (104), Southwest Star Concept (124) and MCC (127) placed behind the Patriots.
Brad Haak and Tyler Bush turned in top 10 efforts to lead the H-BC-E boys. Haak placed second in 17:33. Bush was ninth in 18:36.
Matt Buck, Greg Van Batavia and Lee Jackson placed 14th, 23rd and 27th in 19:14, 19:45 and 20:06 respectively to cap the team scoring for the winners.
Four individuals placed in the top seven for the junior varsity boys, who scored 20 points to best Worthington (43) and Luverne.
Kale Wiertzema won the race in 15:39, Lee Walraven was third in 16:07, Nathan Mahone fourth in 16:31 and Derek Haak seventh in 16:46.
Paul Jess capped the scoring by placing 18th in 18:11, while Jared Drenth didn’t contribute to the team tally by finishing 23rd in 18:53.
Brittney Rozeboom made it a sweep for H-BC-E individuals in junior varsity races when she won the girls' event with a time of 15:02. Becky Broesder was eighth in 16:58.
H-BC-E was one runner short of fielding a complete team in the boys' junior high race.
Devin DeBoer and John Sandbulte crossed the finish line in 6:33 and 6:47 to place second and third respectively. Adam Finke was ninth in 6:59 and Justin Hinks 20th in 9:01.
Stacy Bush placed 10th in 8:03 in the girls' junior high race.
The H-BC-E runners will compete at the Pipestone-Jasper Invitational Monday.