The Magnolia boys’ cross country team slogged through the rain and cold to bring home top honors from the Cambridge Invitational on Saturday, Oct. 1.

Not allowing the weather to deflate their goals, senior Bill Feeney was the overall champion in the race , leading another outstanding performance by fellow senior Alec Hinerman, who was second.

Junior James Haught placed eighth in winning his first top 10 medal of the season. Scoring was completed by Kenny Headley (29) and Kyle Lancaster (46). Magnolia’s 70 points was good for a 10-point victory over runner-up Newcomerstown High School.

Magnolia Head Cross Country Coach John Holliday said, “The guys didn’t allow the terrible weather to diminish their intensity. It would have been easy to let down and just splash through the mud and rain to get it over with, but we gave a competitive effort. This is a good measure for us for the OVAC championships next Saturday at Meadowbrook. We will need an overall team effort there.”

The Blue Eagle boys were runners-up the past two seasons at the giant OVAC championship, but are not favored to win.

On Wednesday, Sept. 28 the cross country girls traveled to the Tyler Invitational and junior Christa Harshberger came away with a third place medal to lead the squad to a fourth place team finish. Following Christa was Sara Goddard in 12 place, Katie Ensinger finished 17, and Julianne McIlvain placed 29th.

Only two boys took part at Tyler and Mikal Raber finished ninth to medal, while teammate Dylan King just missed by finishing 11th.