Panther boys scale hills, competition in CodyThe Powell High School boys' cross country team handled both the competition and a hilly five-kilometer course on Friday to emerge as the team champion of the Cody Invitational. “The course gave us quite a challenge,” said Panther head coach Cliff Boos. “It was very hilly there in the badlands area of the park. It was definitely a real cross country course.”

Just as he had done the previous week, junior Cody Fagley led the Panther boys across the finish line. Fagley clocked in with a time of 20:02 over the 5K distance to finish in fourth place overall. Classmate Danny McKearney also found his way into the top 10 with a ninth-place time of 20:59.

Three other members of the Powell team finished in the top 15. Seniors Matt Condie (11th, 21:49), Devin Lynn (12th, 21:51) and Colton Smith (15th, 22:27) packed it in close to the top of the standings. Smith, Lynn and McKearney all saw improvements of more than 40 seconds over their times from the previous year on the same course.

Worland's Ethan Ryan won the boys' individual title at the meet, racing to a time of 18:45.

As a team, the Panther boys tallied a score of 24 points. Cody was second with a team score of 35 points.

“Individually, we ran very well,” said Boos. “We did well on the hills. We're doing well in our training for this point in the year. There were a lot of schools at the meet, but there weren't a lot of full teams.”

The improvement didn't confine itself to the boys' varsity team, either. Sophomore Bodie Friday, who missed the team's time trial earlier in the week due to illness, bounced back to place second in the JV segment of the race with a time that also would have placed him second among Powell's varsity runners with a time of 20:37. Tim Izell (sixth, 22:48), Max Norberg (seventh, 22:48) and Wyatt Horner (10th, 23:52) also placed in the top 10 for reserve runners.

On the girls' side, the Panthers' lower participation numbers proved costly as the team was unable to field a full squad of runners for the meet.

“We've got a couple runners who are still fighting injuries and then we had three others that weren't able to attend due to other commitments, so we weren't able to field a full team,” said Boos.

Of the four runners who did participate for Powell, all four placed within the top 11 of the individual standings.

Freshman Brooke Nisley raced to a time of 23:52 to lead the Panthers with a third-place finish. Nisley was less than two minutes off the winning pace set by Cody's Sierra Jech in 22:01.

Sophomore Desiree Murray, battling illness all week leading up to the meet, still managed to clock a time of 25:01 to place seventh. Kassey MacDonald (10th, 25:39) and Kristi Mingus (11th, 25:32) rounded out Powell's entries for the meet.

“Desiree ran well after being ill for much of the week,” said Boos. “She was about two minutes over her time from last season, so you can see she wasn't 100 percent, but she did a nice job of fighting through it to finish well.”

The Panthers hope to have a full contingent of runners on the girls' side and to continue their meet success on the boys as the teams return to action on Thursday afternoon at Lander. Powell also participates in the Rocky Mountain invitational, which will be held in Lovell on Monday, Sept. 21.

Both events will take place at the golf courses of the respective host communities.

“Hopefully we'll be at full strength for both of those meets,” said Boos. “I'm also hoping the good weather holds out for both events. We've had some beautiful weather to run in so far this season.”