The USC/AC cross country teams competed at the Pine

Island Invitational Thursday.

Amber Erickson once again led the girls&8217; team with an 18th place finish with a time of 18:02 over the windswept 4,000-meter course. Andree Escherich (23rd), Shelby Little (33rd), Rachel Brown (45th) and Abby Trio (46th) were the other Rebel scorers.

&8220;Because of the strong wind, times were not as fast as we had hoped,&8221; said USC/AC head coach Kent Viesselman. &8220;But we were pleased

that we were able to cut down our range (difference between the No. 1 and No. 5 runners) significantly.&8221;

The boys&8217; squeezed out a second place finish behind Farmington, a team the Rebels had beaten at Montgomery. The Rebels and Zumbrota-Mazeppa-Kenyon-Wannamingo

both finished with 77 points, but the Rebels were awarded second on the basis of the sixth man tiebreaker.

&8220;Both Zumbrota-Mazeppa and Farmington are AA teams,&8221; said Viesselman, &8220;and we were running without Bryan Hauge, which

made a big difference in terms of team score. We beat a rated team (PEM, currently No. 11 in Class A) shorthanded. So all-in-all, we have to be pleased with the performance.&8221;

Jacob Elmer (third), Jordan Haroldson (fifth), Eric Klein (10th), Paul Little (17th) and Jonathan Leland (43rd) were the top finishers for the Rebels.

&8220;Those five are running very well right now,&8221; said Viesselman, &8220;but between Bryan being out and Pete Trio, (normally our sixth runner) being under the weather, we ended up with a gap in there between four and five.&8221;