The Blue Storm boys' cross country team ventured to Ridgeley, WV on September 10 to compete in the Frankfort Invite, hosted by Frankfort High School.  With runners from 13 different schools competing, both the varsity and JV squads finished in second place.

Frankfort high school literally ran away with the varsity meet, taking the top four spots and six of the top eight.  But a strong pack of Mercersburg runners took four of the next six places to give the Blue Storm a strong runner-up performance.  Cole Smith '23 was the top finisher for Mercersburg in 9th place, followed closely by Brendan Shorb '24 (10th), Winston Watkins '25 (13th) and Bryson Brown '24 (14th).  Jake Cruikshank '24 completed the scoring by crossing the line in 20th place.  Shorb ran close to the lead pack in the early stages of the race and finished just behind Smith, who has steadily improved across his four years with the team.  On the other end of the experience spectrum, this was a strong performance for Brown in the first cross country meet of his life.

Coach David Grady noted "Our team’s success this season will largely depend on how tightly we can pack our runners together. Our first four runners were within a 42 second range, which is encouraging. We need to get our fifth man within that range, and then see if we can tighten it even further."

In the JV meet the top finishers were 13th – Justin An ‘23, 14th – Ahman Habib ’26 (incorrectly attributed to Dawson Hastings in the results – Dawson was in the varsity race), 16th – Mortiz Busch ‘25, 17th – Reed Warner ‘25, and 23rd – Sean Flaherty ‘26.

Next week the boys will join the girls at the Ben Blosser Bulldog Invite, hosted by Big Springs high school of Newville, PA.  That meet will begin bright and early at 7:45 a.m. on the morning of Saturday, September 17.