Durant’s varsity girls cross country team continued to make strong early season strides with a fourth-place team finish in the prestigious Moore Invitational last weekend.
The Lady Lions only finished behind one Class 5A squad along with a pair from Class 6A in the team standings. On the boys’ side, the Lions placed eighth as a unit.
Avery Sager keyed the Lady Lions with a thirdplace individual finish of 20 minutes, 20.08 seconds over the 5K course.
Laynee Emert took 18th in 22:26.70 with Katelyn Mauck clocking in 21st at 22:41.43, Rachel Cordell in 28th posting a time of 23:33.46, Ella Sorrels 32nd at 23:39.55 and Brightyn Pilgreen crossing the stripe in 24:31.06 for 39th.
Zach Ervin was the leader of the pack for the Lions, taking 26th individually with a time of 17:51.73 as they also ran the 5K course.
Other Durant finishers included Elijah Parker in 53rd at 19:13.11, Christian Ortiz just behind in 54th with a 19:27.71, Madison Roper at 62nd notching a 20:48.28, Chris Becerra in 63rd checking in at 21:21.89 and Jonathan Hitchcock clocking a 21:58.80 for 65th overall.
The Durant JV girls had a solid performance as well, taking fifth in the team standings for their division.
Alexi Powell topped that group with an 18th place individual mark of 25:17.32. Kira Hoffman was 28th in 26:49.54, Jozelynn Coffey ended 53rd at 30:26.53, Ari Hernandez was 57th posting a 31:20.75 and Lily Determan rounded things out in 63rd with a time of 32:28.17.
For the boys JV, Durant captured eighth in the team competition as well as Landon Laster ran to a 60th place mark of 22:49.65 as the Lions’ top finisher.
Jayden DaVault added a 69th at 23:03.38, Mitchell Palmer was 72nd in 23:18.54, Carson Veenstra took 73rd with a time of 23:18.54, Kyric Lehrling checked in 78th in 23:35.72 and Tristan Dixon ran to a time of 26:41.06 for 96th.
The Durant varsity teams will travel to Ennis, Texas for their next meet on Saturday.