On what was near ideal conditions, several hundred cross country runners converged on the Rivers’ Bend Golf Course for the annual Thompson Falls Invitational meet last week, with men’s and women’s teams from Columbia Falls taking home both team titles.

Plains women placed third in the team standings, while host Thompson Falls was sixth out of a field of 16 high school teams from throughout the area.

Columbia Falls won the team title with a score of 29 points, while second place went to Whitefish, which had 68 team points.

Plains, behind the third-place finish by freshman Marina Tulloch, had 121 points, while the host Lady Hawks, who got a seventh-place finish by senior Faith Palmer, had 162 team points.

In the men’s race, on an overcast but dry afternoon with temperatures in the 60s on the well-groomed course, Columbia Falls took home top team honors with 45 points, followed by Browning, which had 85 points.

Plains was 11th in the team chase, while T Falls, which was without top men’s runner Cael Thilmony, did not have enough runners to qualify for the team competition.

Plains sophomore John Owen Jermyn led local men’s runners, placing 16th.

Thompson Falls freshman Aubrey Baxter was also a top 20 finisher among local runners (Plains and Thompson Falls) when she crossed the finish line 17th.

Plains women’s third place showing was due in large part to the three top 30 places in addition to Tulloch.

Annika Ercanbrack was fifteenth, Savannah Coster came in 27th, and another Trotters freshman, Ashley Ferlan was 28th.

The Plains men also had top 50 finishes from Joe Martin (48th), and Kalem Ercanbrack, (50).

Top finisher for the Blue Hawks was Blake Shusterman, who was 63rd, and Tuff Ryder, who crossed the finish line in 72nd place.

Jermyn covered the 5K course in 18:17.64, while Martin recorded a time of 20:08.89.

Other Plains men who completed the run included Drew Carey (21:41.13) and Asher Seymour (24:29.65)

Thompson Falls’ Thilmony was out with flu for the meet.

On the women’s side of the event, Plains’ Tulloch covered the course in 20:42.46 to finish first among the Trotters. Ercanbrack ran a (22:48.74), Coster had a time of 23:15.50, and Ferlan came in at (23:37.43). Peyton Wasson recorded a time of 25:00.89.

Palmer had a time of 21:17.55 to lead the T Falls’ women, while Baxter finished in 22:32.93. Teammate Peighton Kenney had a time of 24:33.89, Kylee Huff was clocked in 27:00.26, and Adelynn Traver logged a time of 28:42.07.

Both T Falls and Plains also participated in the Great West Invitational in Missoula this past Saturday.