Whitko’s Logan Busz (589) runs with the traffic during Saturday’s Tippecanoe Valley Cross Country Invite. (Photos by Mike Deak)

AKRON – Neither team had an individual champion, but both had tremendous pack runners as Columbia City’s girls and West Noble’s boys teamed up for team titles at Saturday’s Tippecanoe Valley Cross Country Invitational.

The Lady Eagles only had one runner in the top five, Lillie Oddou in fifth place (19:55), but landed all of their scoring finishers in the top 16, well enough to edge Rochester’s talented team in the standings 49-54. Bailie Brown was eighth and Lauren Keller ninth while teammate Eden Oddou was 11th and Jaslyn Cook was the all-important 16th to give City the crown.

Rochester had by far the top runner on the girls course in Kelsey Tyler, who ran with Manchester’s Jaelyn Webb for about a third of the course before exploding on the back stretch and running virtually unopposed over the final 1,000 meters. Tyler won the race with an incredible pace of 18:51. Teammate Sarah Rohr finished fourth and Mallory Hiatt was seventh for the Zebras.

West Noble was third at 76, Manchester fourth at 100 and Bremen rounded out the top five at 103. Webb would take second at 19:46 and Charger Yarency Murillo was third at 19:50.

The top local finisher was Baylee McInitre of Triton, who ran with the second pack of runners and took 15th overall at 21:03. The other Trojan on the course, Briana Wilhite, was 25th at 21:49.

The host Vikings had Jadyn Kolesiak lead the team with a 27th place finish at 22:11. Tippy placed eighth as a team with 209 points. Rounding out the Valley times were Valeria Jimenez (34, 22:32), Haley Hoover (45, 23:43), Ava Craig (50, 24:23) and Lorena Santiago (53, 24:35).

Whitko had two girls on the course, Elizabeth Foutz at 27:23 and Angel Moyer at 27:51.

On the boys side, Thomas Rohr returned to the invite and defended his 2016 individual championship with another title run of 15:49. Rohr had some company from West Noble’s Dakota Thompson and Jordan Shoemaker, but used a strong kick on the final third of the race to hold off the Charger duo. Thompson was second at 16:13, Shoemaker third at 16:19.

The top two from West Noble helped the Chargers run away with the title. Combined with an sixth place run from Abraham Longoria (16:33), tenth from Michael Weaver (17:00) and 12th from Allen Abad (17:07), the Chargers scored 33 points to stay well clear of runner-up Wabash’s 100 and Columbia City’s 131. Rohr’s finish didn’t help Rochester as the Zebras settled in sixth.

Tippecanoe Valley finished eighth in the team standings, but were hurt by a disqualification. Jace Honeycutt was a physical top-25 finisher, but was deemed to have violated race rules after making an incorrect turn on the course, which knocked his score from Valley’s slate. From there, Valley used scores from Jordan Owens (32, 18:31), Mitchell Smith (45, 18:54), Matthew Howes (46, 18:56), Colt Demske (49, 19:02) and Justin Peconga (58, 19:31) for a team score of 230.

Triton was next in ninth at 241, led by Josiah Page’s 18:28 for 31st place. Russell Reichard (36, 18:42), Brandon Kitch (44, 18:52), Ty Ferry (50, 19:02) and Trent Barnhart (80, 21:23) made up the Trojan scorers.

Whitko had 278 points for 12th, with Logan Busz running a great race of 18:04 to land in 23rd place overall. Zack Freel (34, 18:39), Collin Bross (53, 19:16), Ezra Miller (77, 20:54) and Caden Compton (91, 24:13) were the scorers for the Wildcats.

Lakeland Christian Academy had just four runners, one shy of a team score requirement. For the Cougars, Rye Stevens (21:35), Trenton Parker (21:52), Sam Turner (23:05) and Josh Nakasone (34:26) were on the course.

The middle school races opened the morning, with Josie Briner of Manchester winning the girls race at 12:49 and Joeseph Cholger of Rochester winning the boys race at 10:52, beating West Noble’s Cameron Dupuy by a step. Rochester’s girls (33) and West Noble’s boys (30) were the middle school team winners.