The Boonsboro girls and Albert Einstein boys claimed the varsity team titles at Saturday's Rebel Invitational at South Hagerstown High School. The Boonsboro girls were led by 1A indoor state champ Camryn Harper in 5th place at 20:52, while the remaining top five finished among the top 17 places to give the defending state champions a decisive 55 point margin of victory against rivals Smithsburg (2nd, 109 pts).
The Einstein boys had two of the top four individual finishes in the meet to help their team cause between Simeon Mussie (3rd, 16:54) and Tyler Wilson (4th, 17:31). Their total team score of 77 points put them 19 points ahead of the runners-up in Pennsylvania school Greencastle Antrim.
Meanwhile, Smithsburg's Will Merritt won the boys race individually comfortably by 18 seconds in a time of 16:26. Only William Jones of St. Maria Gorretti was able to break 17 minutes with Merritton a humid morning in Hagerstown. Merritt was 25 seconds faster than his 2015 runner-up performance at the same meet on the same course at South Hagerstown.
A pair of runners from Greencastle Antrim (PA) went 1-2 in the girls race with Taryn Parks in first at 19:03 followed by teammate Lauren Hirneisen in second at 19:29. They finished well ahead of two very good runners from Maryland in Heather Delaplaine (3rd, 20:00) of Damascus and last week's Seahawk Invite winner Reilly Caldwell (4th, 20:31) of Middletown.
Rebel Invitational Results: