Both the USC/AC boys&8217; and girls&8217; cross country teams showed improvement Wednesday at the Mountain Lake Invitational.

The girls&8217; competition was won by the team from Adrian, last year&8217;s state champion, followed by very strong teams from Waseca and Fairmont.

The Rebel girls finished seventh out of the 16 teams represented.

&8220;It was a quality field,&8221; USC/AC head coach Kent Viesselman said. &8220;There were at least four potential state meet teams in the competition.

&8220;Because of our youth and inexperience and the size of the field, we were a little concerned about getting out ok in the first mile. Joelle (Elmer) did a good job in helping the younger girls through that part of the race.&8221;

Andree Escherich was the top finisher for the USC/AC runners, finishing 37th in the field of approximately 120 runners.

The boys finished in fourth place, behind Adrian, Waseca and Fairmont, but were just 12 points out of second.

Jacob Elmer was the top runner for the locals, finishing in fourth place as an individual.

&8220;Jake ran a strong race,&8221; Viesselman said. &8220;He was in seventh place at the mile and moved up as the race progressed. He was closing on the second and third place runners in the last half mile.

A real key

to the high finish was the performance of our

second through fifth runners. They packed up early, and ran as a team throughout the race. They were running in about 30th to 35th place in the middle of the race, and moved up as a team

throughout

the second half of the race to finish in the low to mid 20s.

It was a very good team performance.

Next action for the Rebels is the

Red Bird Invitational at the Montgomery Golf Course this Thursday, with the first race scheduled to begin at 4:15 p.m. Thirty-seven teams are expected to compete.