NORTHFIELD &045; The USC/AC and Albert Lea boys’ and girls’ cross country teams look to be rounding into shape at just the right time as they competed at the Northfield Invitational held at St Olaf College last Thursday.

The Rebels continue to run strong while the Tigers were able to cut a lot of time on their way to several personal best results at the meet.

&uot;We get into this meet for two reasons,&uot; said USC/AC head coach Kent Viesselman. &uot;First of all, it’s a very high level of competition, secondly, it gives our kids a chance to run at the site of the state meet.”

&uot;The team had a major breakthrough regarding personal time,&uot; said Tiger head coach Jim Haney.

&uot;Many of the runners had personal records and it was great to see the times drop by one or two minutes in some cases.&uot;

Brad Tomschin turned in his best performance of the season in leading the Rebel boys to an eighth place finish.

&uot;At first glance, it wouldn’t appear that we should be too excited about our team placement,&uot; said Viesselman, &uot;but when you take a look at the teams involved, realize that we were resting two of our top five runners for Swain, and that six of our top seven ran their best time of the season, it changes the complexion of things.&uot;

A

bright spot for the Rebels was the continued improvement of Greg Opseth, Shane Bias, Alex Ramaker, Sam Hallman, and Erik Melby.

Freshman Ethan Marquardt led the Tigers with a 15th place showing followed by Levi Butt in 34th and Josh Anderson in 45th.

&uot;Ehan ran an outstanding race, he got out fast and held his position during the race,&uot; said Haney.

&uot;A lot of our kids are learning that running and racing are two different things now.&uot;