EUREKA — Starting a new cross-country program, you might expect Mission to have some growing pains in establishing a good group of runners. However, after last Friday at the Eureka invitational, it seems that they’ve skipped that step.

“They’ve blown my expectations out of the water,” Mission head coach Patrick Murphy said.

Sophomore Paden Alexander blazed to a third place finish with a time of 18:17 as the boys’ team finished in third place overall behind Whitefish and Plains. Alexander was accompanied by his tennis teammate, Bryan Shock, who took ninth with a 18:59 time.

Murphy said that the team shaved minutes off their time from last week’s meet at the Ronan Canal Bank run.

“That’s unheard of,” he said. “That’s a pretty big improvement. I think part of that is getting used to the racing scene.”

Murphy said some of his guys got out to quick starts last week and faded, but this time around they were able to pace themselves more evenly. Senior Xavier Streets  shaved off roughly six minutes from his time and freshman Karl Daniels improved by about four minutes.

“Team depth is absolutely essential,” Murphy said. “If we can get the No. 3, No. 4, No. 5 runners continuing to improve, that’s going to help the team.”

Only one team in the girls race had enough runners to collect points, but Murphy estimated that if his fifth runner hadn’t been injured (using her previous time this year) they would have finished second. Junior Ashley Courville was not only a star for the Lady Bulldogs on the volleyball court this weekend, but also at the cross country meet where she took eighth overall with a time of 21:25.

“She’s got the right attitude where she gives everything she participates in her all and it shows,” Murphy said.

Senior Rose Bear Don’t Walk finished 11th with a time of 24:43 and senior LaGlen Mitchell finished 14th at 25:13. The girls that also play for the Mission volleyball team had quite a bit of traveling to do.

“We were in Eureka on Friday night and they were back on the bus the next morning going up to Troy,” Murphy said. “I think [the entire team has] the perfect mindset to be involved in things as much as they can. They bring energy to every event.”

Mission will run at the Mountain West Classic next weekend in Missoula.