PLAINS – Now that’s what’s called a mountain run.

Plains harriers hosted the Plains Invitational season-opening cross country meet at a beautiful wooded site complete with constructed trail just for this purpose and a running stream on a course carved from the mountainsides south of Plains Saturday.

Coach Jesse Jermyn is attempting to keep the traditional season-opening meet relatively small, but that may be hard to do when other teams learn of it. As far as cool kind of meets go, this one checks a lot of the boxes – stunning scenery, a challenging, fun course and relatively few runners.

Jermyn says that is by design. “We wanted to make this a small, informal meet and hope to keep it that way,” he said. “It’s a good low-pressure way to get kids out and racing for the first time of the season.”

Jermyn’s son John Jermyn, the defending State B cross country champ, won the boys varsity race on the imaginative wooded course, clocking out in 17:09, and Cord Greer took second for Plains in 17:30.

Also completing the course for the Plains boys were Jack Cockrell (21:30), Tyler Barton (22:18) and Bryan Lakko (22:47).

Freshman Emmy Russell won second place in the girls race in 25:41 and sophomore Kylie Silva fourth in 28:11.

Jace Russell won the boys junior high race in 9:24 and Louis Jermyn, Camden Albertson, Mason Marten and Kael Meaden also finished the course.

Gracelyn Larson, Ashlynn Weedeman, Jordyn Albertson and Pearl Ferlen ran in the girls junior high race for Plains.

    THE THUNDERING HERD of varsity cross country runners takes off at the start of the Plains Invitational cross country race south of Plains Saturday. (John Hamilton/vp-mi)