The Powell High School cross country teams finished fifth, and sixth, respectively, at the Class 3A West Conference meet in Lander on Friday.

The Panther girls scored 123 points to take fifth out of seven qualifying teams, while the boys scored 162 points to finish sixth of seven.

PHS head coach Cliff Boos said the West Conference meet is always highly competitive.

“We just don’t see Star Valley, Jackson, Mountain View very much ... We don’t see a lot of these teams, so it’s just really hard to surmise what might happen,” Boos said. “I just expected it would be tough, which it always is.”

Sophomore Emma Andreasen was once again the girls’ top runner, and cut about 1:17 off her previous time in Lander. Andreasen was 15th overall with a time of 22:56.26.

The girls team showed continued improvement while the boys stayed stagnant in the season’s penultimate meet.

Teo Faulkner (17th, 23:04.36), Lexee Craig (46th, 26:06.76) and Emily Sweet (54th, 27:07.40) each improved by about 30 seconds.

“I didn’t see much improvement on the boys side compared to last time in Lander,” Boos said.

Senior Brandon Anderson was the Panthers’ top runner. He finished in 19:49.20 to take 24th.

Freshman Alan Merritt was 33rd overall with a time of 19:58.62, sophomore Eyob Robirds was 43rd with a time of 20:26.29, freshman Jesse Erickson was 49th (20:42.35) and senior Alex Aguirre placed 50th (20:42.35).

JuliaKay O’Neill was the third Panther girl to cross the finish line. The sophomore was 28th overall with a time of 24:12.79, and sophomore Maddy Hanks was 33rd with a time of 24:58.10.

Sweet finished sixth among Panther girls and her time was not included in the team score.

Jackson won the girls’ race with 18 points, headlined by overall winner Abby Brazil, who finished in 20:09.08.

Cody was second with 70 points and Star Valley took third with 89.

The boys’ race was won by Star Valley (24 points) despite Cody’s Brody Smith winning the race with a time of 16:40. Jackson finished third with 61 points.

“This is probably the way they’re going to finish at state, so we knew we were jumping in a hornet’s nest there,” Boos said. “Last year the girls got third in conference and only slipped to fourth in state.”

The Panthers will go easy during their final week of practice as they prepare for Saturday’s state meet in Sheridan.

“We do the same type of workout, same intensity, just half as much,” Boos said.

Powell will run 3 or 4 miles a day for the first half of the week, and take Thursday and Friday off to taper for state.

This will be Powell’s second trip to Sheridan this season, and Boos said that should boost the team’s confidence because they know “how to attack the course this time.”