Area high schools competed in the Pete Moss Invitational held at Benzie Central on Saturday, with the Glen Lake girls team placing seventh overall out of 20 schools that participated.

Sophomore Kaitlin Grigg came in ninth overall with a time of 21 minutes, 5.8 seconds. McKenna Turrill placed 12th with a time of 21:16.3; Katie Stowe was 53rd with a time of 23:15.5; and Jane Lively placed 66th with 24:10.7.

“This course is a great one because it’ll be a regional course,” said Ryan Schut, Glen Lake’s coach.

And most of the regional teams were there, he said.

“It’s a really good indication of where our kids are going to place,” he said. “All of the kids improved their time compared to past years.”

For the Glen Lake boys, Logan Marr ran a time of 23:32, Reed Deemer ran a 24:22.8, Theo Koda ran a 25:54.9, and Josiah Vander Zon ran a time of 26:42.6.

Suttons Bay coach Mark Smith was happy with his kids’ performances.

“Sam Wynsma is starting this season out exactly one minute ahead of where he was last year at this time with a 19:30 effort on a fast and flat course,” Smith said.

Dani Merwin passed 15 people in the last half of the race to move up to 37th place with a 22:26.5 effort. Tanna Windham and Mia Grote both cut about three minutes off their previous best times set earlier this week in Cadillac with Tanna finishing in 25:36 and Mia running 28:49.

“It was nice to see the team run well on what will be our regional course,” Smith said.

In Leland, coach Ryan DeFour said both Christian Doran and Tristan Peabody ran very well.

“I told them they needed to make sure they were running their pace from the start, and to not run the first quarter mile too quickly,” De- Four said. “They did a great job of that and hit their first mile split perfectly. They struggled in the second mile a little, but both finished very well. Christian passed Tristan in the last quarter mile, but Tristan had a really strong last 100 meters.”

Peabody finished in 25:54 and Doran finished in 26:05.

For the St. Mary boys, Drew Poboda finished in 21st with a time of 18:24.2.

Daniel Duperon (21:44), Ryan Schaub, (23:40); Jack Garthe (22:48.9); and Tristan Tarsa (22:24.2) all finished within 15 places of each other.

“The girls had a solid outing. Once again, it’s only August, so the game plan was only to go out and compete on Saturday, which everyone did quite well,” said coach Mike Bean, who likes his kids to get back in the swing of school and focus on academics for the first couple of weeks.

“It’s too early in the season to care about where we finish,” he said. “We just want to focus on staying healthy and getting stronger every day.”