{gallery}10_14_10/phsxc{/gallery}Junior Desiree Murray (left) and sophomore Tally Wells lead a string of runners up a hill at the Powell Golf Club during the Panthers' final regular-season meet. Both the boys' and girls' teams won team titles at the meet. Tribune photo by Don Amend PHS preps for conference with home victoriesPowell High School's cross country teams revved up for Friday's conference meet in Lyman with a sweep of their home invitational last week. The Panthers proved the fastest teams on the five-kilometer circuit of the Powell Golf Club, placing the top five runners among the first 10 to cross the finish line in both the boys' and girls' races.

“It was nice for the kids to be able to go out and compete at home,” said Panther cross country coach Cliff Boos. “Everyone's starting to get healthy and now we can spend this week resting and getting ready for the conference meet in Lyman.”

Tally Wells finished five seconds ahead of sophomore classmate Brooke Nisley to spearhead a parade of four straight Panthers across the finish line. Wells clocked a time of 22:03 to place fourth overall. Following Nisley (22:08), freshman Sierra Morrow (22:25) and junior Desiree Murray (22:47) crossed to complete Powell's sweep of the fourth through seventh positions in the final standings. Senior Kassey MacDonald rounded out Powell's varsity roster, running ninth with a time of 23:24.

Overall, the Panther girls finished with 31 team points. Cody placed second on the girls' side with 44 points.

Just like the Powell girls paraded four consecutive runners across the finish line in the top 10, the Panther boys executed a similar strategy. Not surprisingly, it resulted in the same team success.

Senior John Kissner's time of 18:43 put him just 33 seconds off the winning pace and enabled him to lead the orange and black pack in third place, one second and one place ahead of junior Bodie Friday.

Seniors Cody Fagley (19:03) and Danny McKearney (19:05) placed fifth and sixth, respectively. Sophomore Andrew Feller (19:39) rounded out the scoring portion of the Panthers' lineup with a 10th-place finish. Sophomore Justin Lynn (12th, 19:59) and senior Tyler McCauley (13th, 20:16) rounded out the Powell roster.

As a team, the Panthers easily won the meet with a score of 33 points. Rocky Mountain edged Cody 71-74 for runner-up honors.

“Neither team had someone out front, but they both ran together as a group and really packed in there,” said Boos, noting the time spread from first to last runner across the finish line was 1:33 for the Powell boys and just 1:21 for the Panther girls. “That's what really helps to win at the bigger meets.”

The Panthers travel to Lyman on Friday for the 3A West conference cross country meet, where they will compete against five other schools.

“It's a pretty flat course, so we should be able to post some pretty good times there,” said Boos.