WELLS &045; The USC/AC and Albert Lea cross country teams took part in the Half Moon Invitational Friday in the first competition for both this season.

The Rebel boys finished fourth while the Tigers were seventh overall. The race is different than most with No. 1 runners competing against other No. 1s down through the seventh runner and not the entire field as is usually the case.

On the girls&8217; side, USC/AC took sixth place just in front of Albert Lea which finished seventh.

USC/AC was led by an Elmer in each race with Jacob Elmer leading the boys with a time of 17:01 in the No. 1 spot while Joelle Elmer posted a time of 18:33 for the girls in the No. 1 race.

Brian Klein finished in 18:31 at No. 2 for the Rebels, Paul Little ran a 20:50 at No. 3 and Shane Bias came to the finish in 18:31 in the No. 4 race placing him second among all No. 4 runners.

Andrew Mueller ran a 19:47 at No. 5 and Jon Leland won the No. 6 boys&8217; race with a mark of 19:01 while Pete Trio was second in 19:30 at the seventh varsity position.

Albert Lea was paced by Ethan Marquardt&8217;s second place run at No. 2 with a time of 17:04. Levi Budd ran an 18:41 in the No. 1 spot.

Judd Bonnerup ran 20:12, Mitch Wenum a 21:44, Drew Klick came in at 21:17, Derek Lavalier finished in 21:42 and Steven Kruen had a 19:52 to round out positions three through seven for Albert Lea.

Abigail Randall turned in the fastest time for the Tiger girls completing the course in 18:28 from her No. 3 spot while the top two runners of Alicia Reyes and Mallory King ran 19:06 and 18:42, respectively.

Alyssa Sager finished in 19:00 at No. 4, while Paige Seadlund and Lauren Klick had times of 21:27 and 19.58.

USC/AC had just five runners compete in varsity with Andrea Escherich running an 18:02 and Nicole Klein a 19:00. Abby Trio finished in 19:53 and Kelsey Munson finished in 19:45 in the No. 5 race.

Fairmont took the top spot for the boys by more than a half minute over Waseca while the results were reversed on the girls&8217; side of the race.