The Gladstone boys doubled their pleasure here Tuesday, earning the Mid-Peninsula Conference and Negaunee Invitational cross country titles.

Gladstone retained its M-PC title with 29 points and tallied 32 in the invitational.

In the overall meet, on a 3.1-mile course during a sunny, breezy and seasonably cool afternoon behind the Negaunee Township Hall, the Braves were followed by Westwood with 73 points and Negaunee in third with 86. Manistique was fifth with 126, while Gwinn was sixth with 132. Ishpeming didn’t have enough finishers to post a team score.

Hancock won the overall girls meet with 49 points, followed by M-PC champion Negaunee with 58, Calumet 64 and Gladstone 93. Westwood finished fifth with 98 and Manistique had 125 as the Hematites also didn’t have enough runners in this meet to post a team score.

A mass of runners take off from the starting line at the beginning of the boys race during the Negaunee Invitational high school cross country meet held at the Negaunee Township Trails on Tuesday. (Photo courtesy Vickie Paupore)

Negaunee junior Nori Korsman won the M-PC girls title and finished second overall in 21 minutes, 22.6 seconds, while senior teammate Marlee Plaxco came in next in 21:42.8.

“I wanted to stay with the leaders and got stronger as the race went on,” Korsman said. “This gives me momentum from upcoming races. The weather helped a lot. It was just more comfortable than it was for most other meets this year.”

Plaxco said she also wanted to run at a steady pace.

“I paced myself and it paid off,” she said. “I’m really happy about our team winning the conference. I think this gives us a little momentum going into the rest of the season. This is definitely the best weather we had for running this season. We really didn’t feel the wind in the woods. The leaves were our friend.”

Manistique junior Maya Carlson, who was the early leader, took fourth overall (22:10.4) and Negaunee sophomore Riley Conklin was fifth (22:11.6).

“I wanted to go out fast and led through much of the first lap,” Carlson said. “I definitely got tired, but it’s a fun course. We had perfect weather. This is better than running in the heat. It was a good race and there was good competition.”

In the M-PC meet, the fastest runners from Negaunee and Manistique occupied the top four places, while Westwood’s Addy Hallum was sixth in 22:59.6, Ishpeming’s Laynie Korpi eighth in 24:09.2 and the Patriots’ Oni Heinzel 10th in 24:32.6.

In the boys overall meet, Calumet’s Andrew Junttila ran off with the individual overall title by almost 10 seconds in 18:11.7 as Gladstone’s Austin Corey was runner-up in 18:21.3. Corey was also crowned the M-PC champion.

The Miners’ Simon Jaklin was less than a second behind Corey in third in 18:22.0, while Manistique’s Ben Gilroy was fifth in 18:39.0, Negaunee’s Michael Slawinski sixth in 18:52.8 and Gwinn’s Thomas Jenkins eighth in 19:03.7.

All those area runners moved up one spot in the M-PC meet, while also cracking the top 10 in the conference standings was Westwood’s Michael Stickel in 10th in 19:22.7.

This was the first victory for Junttila, a sophomore.

“I just wanted to get a quick start,” Junttila said. “I knew I had a chance of taking this one. This is a great confidence boost, knowing I can do that. It feels great to win one.

“There’s a lot of up and down on the course, including a lot of downhills. This is perfect running weather, a nice change from the heat. This is beautiful weather and a beautiful course.”