By Journal Sports Staff

MARQUETTE – Duos from Marquette carted off both individual victories, but Negaunee used good depth from its boys squad to prevent the host school from sweeping team titles at the Marquette Invitational Cross Country Relays on Friday.

Held on a partly cloudy morning with temperatures in the 60s at Marquette Senior HIgh School, the Miners scored 14 points in the boys meet to edge the Redmen, who had 18.

Ishpeming had 25 and Gladstone 28 before a big dropoff in the standings as Munising was fifth with 69, Westwood seventh with 96, Gwinn eighth with 105 and Manistique ninth with 124.

In the girls meet, MSHS went 1-2 to finish with 11 points, easily outdistancing Ishpeming’s 30, Negaunee’s 39 and Gladstone’s 40.

Munising was fifth with 51, Westwood seventh with 62 and Manistique eighth with 86 as Gwinn didn’t field a full team.

In what is otherwise a solitary sport, pairs of runners alternated a total of six one-mile segments that also turns the meet into more of a sprint that usual.

In the girls meet, Marquette’s Lindsey Rudden and Amber Huebner combined to run their six miles in 35 minutes, 26 seconds, good for a victory of more than a minute over teammates Becky McNamee and Holly Blowers, who clocked 36:42.

The latter pair were 19 seconds ahead of third-place Rieka Buchenau and Clara Johnson of Negaunee (37:01).

Two other teams broke the 38-minute mark before a gap of more than a minute and a half to the next pair – Amber Gransinger and Katie Etelamaki of Westwood were fourth in 37:11, while Alyssa Webber and Madeleine Peramaki of Munising were fifth in 37:34.

The final duos to medal by cracking the top eight included Khora Swanson and Mariah Bertucci of Ishpeming and Zita Jameson and Chloe Henning of Marquette.

In the boys meet, MSHS runners Troy Sergey and Lance Rambo finished in 31:15 for a nearly half-minute victory over Negaunee’s Colton Yesney and Grant Johnson in 31:41.

But the Miners also had the third-place team of Ethan Wallner and Thomas Ziegler in 32:47 along with ninth-place Mark Anderson and Mitchell LaBelle to eke out the victory.

Spencer Giroux and KJ Pruett of Ishpeming finished fourth in 33:03, with Jesse Elsenbroek and Logan Zueger of Marquette close behind in 33:08.

The other area duo to medal was Jordan Humphrey and Brett Hannah of Munising.

Top finishers for their teams included Ashley McDonald and Joslyn Muth of Manistique, 17th in the girls race; Fred Boburka and Shawn McIntyre of Westwood, 20th in the boys race; and Jacob Porubski and Bradley Veale fo Gwinn, 27th in the boys race; and Darren Hicks and Phillip Hagenson of Manistique, 37th in the boys race.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.