The United South Central girls’ and boys’ cross country team competed in the Swain Invitational Saturday in Duluth, a meet which features many of the better teams and individuals from throughout Minnesota, particularly the northern half of the state.

Thirty-eight teams were represented in the Class A competition.

Both the girls and boys finished in the middle of the pack, the girls 15th and the boys 16th.

“Sometimes it’s a little hard to see where you stand in this meet,” USC Coach Kent Viesselman said. “Several of the teams will have only their top few kids compete at the varsity level, electing to run the remainder of their varsity team in the junior varsity race or in the freshman or sophomore races where they’ll place higher. As a result, many of them are scored as incomplete in the varsity competition even though they are running enough runners somewhere in the meet so they could be scored as a complete team if they so chose.”

The hilly course is undoubtedly the toughest that the Rebels see during the season. “Conditions were a mixed bag,” Viesselman said. “It was a perfect day to run, but large portions of the course were very wet and spongy, and with the hills, we expected times to be very slow. In spite of that, a number of the boys ran their best times of the season.”

Leading the way for the girls was Hannah Goemann, who was running in 51st at the end of the first mile, and moved up to finish in 23rd place. Andree Escherich (48th) was the second Rebel finisher. “Andree also moved up 15-20 spots during the second half of the race,” Viesselman said.

Daniel Elmer (22nd) and Dylan Baumann (44th) were the top two finishers for the Rebels in the boys race. Dylan Baumann, Adam Stevermer, Thane O’Rourke and Eric Redman all posted their best times of the season, with Daniel just one second away from his best time. “Considering the hills and spongy surface, we were a little surpised that the times were as good as they were,” Viesselman said.

Thursday the Rebels will compete at the eight-team Waseca Invitational.