A quicker than anticipated turnaround had the Powell Panther cross country teams competing in Riverton for the 3A West Conference meet on Wednesday. The Panther girls had three of the top six runners to pace a second place team finish while the boys saw Liam Taylor place in the top 10 as the Panther boys finished sixth as a team.

Returning to her lead running position for the team, a spot she held for much of the season, was Kinley Cooley, who picked up a fourth place finish with a time of 20:27.48.

Less than a second behind her was Kenna Jacobsen, who raced to a fifth place finish and ended up with a time of 20:27.78.

Rounding out the All-Conference racers for the Panthers was Karee Cooley, who ended up in sixth place with a 20:34.7.

“These three have consistently been our front runners and it was great to see them all come in as a pack, just behind the top two Cody girls and getting in front of their third runner to break up those points,” coach Ashley Hildebrand said.

Jordan Black was the fourth runner across for Powell, finishing 18th with a 21:21.05.

Just behind her was Myah Rakness, who finished in 19th with a 21:26.07.

That rounded out the scoring for the Panthers, who finished with 52 points as a team, just behind Cody. The Fillies only led by one after the initial three runners but its 13th- and 14th-place finishes for the fourth and fifth runners helped give the Fillies the conference title with 41 points.

“The time spread between our top five runners was less than a minute this week and we hope to close that up even more at state as well as the scoring gap between our No. 3, 4 and 5 runners,” Hildebrand said.

Powell finished 19 points ahead of third place Evanston.

The sixth runner across for Powell in the meet was Melissa Merritt who took 23rd in 21:36.48 and the seventh runner was Shelby Zickefoose in 29th with a 21:55.85.

Brynn Hillman finished 36th with a 22:26.01, Eleasah Horsley was 37th with a 22:46.32, Salem Brown was 40th with a 22:51.68, Ashlee Jacobsen was 41st with a 22:52.37 and Gracie Wolff was the final Panther across in 22:59.84.

On the boys’ side, Taylor was the first runner across for Powell to take home All-Conference honors in ninth with a 17:27.41.

Korbyn Warren was the next to cross in 14th, finishing with a 17:57.59.

“Both Liam and Korbyn ran in the 18s the first time we ran on this course in early September, and are now both consistently running in the 17s. This shows how their hard work in practice has paid off,” Hildebrand said.

Third across for Powell was Colin Walker, ending up in 46th with a time of 19:35.97 to get a time almost a minute faster than his time in September.

Nathan Varian improved by two minutes in his race, finishing in 59th with a 20:34.8.

Thomas Shuman and Jon Hawley showed significant improvement over their previous times, with a 64th place finish by Shuman (21:04.87) and an 84th place finish for Hawley (23:15.6).

Evanston ran away with the boys’ team title, finishing with 39 points — 24 ahead of second place Cody who finished one point ahead of Riverton.

“This was our second time racing on Riverton’s course this year and every one of our runners bettered their time from earlier in the season, which you love to see as a coach,” Hildebrand said.

Powell will now head on a long road trip this weekend, heading down to Cheyenne to take part in the state cross country meet on Saturday morning.

The meet will take place at the Cheyenne Country Club, with weather expected to be in the low 70’s for the day.

“We now have our sights set on the state meet and will spend the week preparing for that race and centering our focus on peaking at the right time,” Hildebrand said.

Powell is expected to be in a race for the team title with Cody, as well as 3A East champion Buffalo and Evanston for trophy position as the Panthers will try to improve on a third place finish last season.