The Oak Harbor girls cross country team finished first out of 93 teams at the Three Course Challenge at Camp Rilea in Seaside, Ore., Saturday, Sept. 18.

The Wildcat boys were 15th in the contest that featured schools from Washington, Oregon, Idaho and California.

The teams divided their runners into three different groups to race over three different courses. The easy course covered 4,500 meters, the moderate course 5,100 and the difficult 5,500.

The moderate and difficult courses included a mud pit, which “was huge due to all the rain they’ve had,” according to coach Eric Peterson.

The difficult course cut through the woods and up side hills. Peterson said, “It is steep, uneven and tough, but the kids really liked it.”

Team scores were determined by the top two finishers in the easy and moderate races and the top three in the difficult race.

The Oak Harbor girls won Division 1, the largest division, over 22 teams with 65 points, the best score of any team at the competition. Tahoma was a distant second with 146.

All seven Wildcat girls finished in the top 21 of their races.

Adrianna Royal (21:44) and Allison Duvenez (22:40) earned the highest individual honors by finishing second and fourth out of 341 runners in the moderate race.

Christina Wicker (24:33), Abigail Leete (24:39) and Alex Laiblin (25:25) went 7-8-21 out of 288 in the difficult race.

Over the easy course, Hannah Bressler (20:10) and Olivia Meyer finished 10th and 13th out of 315.

Peterson said, “The girls were excited to see how they matched up with some of the top teams in Oregon and Washington, and they delivered.”

He said he was impressed with the performances of seniors Royal, Duvenez and Leete, and that newcomers Bressler, Laiblin and Meyer “really stepped up.” He added that Wicker “really improved through track and over the summer” and “put together a solid performance.”

Peterson was also pleased with his young boys team “considering some of the races had over 500 athletes in them.” He said, “For a couple of the runners, it was their first ‘big’ meet so we were able to overcome the butterflies and have a great day of racing (and jumping in the mud pit).”

Matt Reith (19:06) led the boys with a seventh in the moderate race; Chris Opdyke (22:42) was 137th out of 471.

Over the hard course, John Kaltenbach (21:37) was 44th out of 532; Wyatt Homola (22:59) and Michael Kincy (23:01) were 116th and 120th.

Thomas Honeycutt (18:54) and Adriel Eckart (19:09) were 88th and 96th out of 396 over the easy course.

Oak Harbor will join Glacier Peak, Edmonds-Woodway and Cascade at Mariner Wednesday, Sept. 22, for a 3:45 p.m. meet.