Saturday’s Bobcat Invitational marked the largest NHIAA cross country event that’s been run so far this season, and, in both varsity races, it was Hopkinton that topped all the Capital Area teams.

Freshman Madeleine Lane continued her stellar rookie campaign, taking third in the girls’ 5K race in 20 minutes, 18.6 seconds, while the senior duo of Matt Clarner and Ben Daniels finished 10th and 11th, respectively, to lead the Hawks at the 23-team Bobcat Invitational at DeMeritt Hill Farm in Lee.

The Hopkinton girls finished third, racing amongst giants in the N.H. cross-country world, while the boys finished seventh.

Hosts Oyster River (Division II) placed five runners in the top eight to cruise to the team title with 27 points, while D-I Bedford (111) and D-III Hopkinton (118) took second and third. The rest of the top five were D-I schools with Exeter (134) and Concord (144) finishing fourth and fifth.

Newmarket – led by individual champion Alanna Hagen (19:52) – finished sixth with 167 points. Bow finished eighth with 213, while Pembroke competed, but did not have enough runners to score.

Lane – who finished runner-up in the season-opening Gilford Early Bird Invitational by half a second – once again ran with the state’s best to finish third out of 103 runners. Shaylee Murdough (12th, 21:53), Reese Bove (23rd, 22:34), Elizabeth Trafton (42nd, 23:57) and Amelia Walsh (46th, 24:23) were the other scoring runners for Hopkinton.

Concord’s top five runners were Shelly Smith (17th, 22:31), Chloe Gudas (21st, 22:40), Bella Komorek (24th, 22:43), Morgan Doherty (32nd, 23:11) and Madeleine Short (61st, 25:09).

Hannah Pawlowski (18th, 22:34), Julia Hou (21st, 22:42), Lena Thompson (40th, 23:55), Olivia Shippos (82nd, 27:40) and Lauren Oppold (87th, 28:55) led Bow, while Layla Couture (96th, 31:10) led Pembroke.

On the boys’ side, Bedford’s Jacob Redman (16:53.9) won the individual title, with Belmont Hill School (from Belmont, Mass.) taking the team title with 84 points.

Bedford (90), Oyster River (135), Exeter (141) and Londonderry (144) were the other top-five boys’ teams.

Hopkinton’s score of 185 was good for seventh, while Bow was ninth with 242. Pembroke did not have enough runners for a team score.

Clarner (17:52) and Daniels (17:57) were joined by Liam O’Rourke (39th, 19:27), James Lavers (54th, 20:09) and Jorge Guerra (85th, 21:53) in the Hawks’ scoring effort.

Alden Betterley (27th, 18:48), Aiden Ciminesi (45th, 19:43), Wyatt Worcester (46th, 19:45), Owen Miller (68th, 20:37) and Thomas Sargent (73rd, 21:00) scored for Bow.

Caleb Saturley (75th, 21:04) was the top runner for Pembroke.

Great Glen Invite

While the Concord girls were running through orchards in Lee, the Tide boys went north to the mountains to compete in the Paul Letarte Mount Washington Great Glen Invitational hosted by Berlin.

Concord finished fourth at the 13-team invite, while the Merrimack Valley boys finished seventh and the Pride girls finished fourth out of five scoring teams.

St. Johnsbury Academy (Vt.) topped the boys’ team standings at 32 points, followed by Pinkerton (41), Hanover (110), Concord (139), Nashua North (152), Mascoma (165) and MV (187) in the top seven.

Carson Eames of St. Johnsbury won the individual title in 16:30.

Josiah Conley (fifth, 17:13), Tyler Watt (15th, 18:16), Ian Mamos (25th, 18:52), William Chorlian (41st, 19:35) and Elliot Clendenning (59th, 20:53) were the scoring runners for Concord.

Mychal Reynolds (19th, 18:33), Ben Geoffroy (32nd, 19:13), Nathan Bain (40th, 19:32), Tony Wang (51st, 20:30) and Ben Newton (54th, 20:41) led MV.

Plymouth’s Elli Englund topped the girls’ field with a time of 20:41.5, with Hanover (52), St. Johnsbury (55), Plymouth (68), MV (86) and Kennett (89) completing the team scores.

Lily Moser (eighth, 22:59), Madison Geddes (10th, 23:23), Sydney Spack (22nd, 25:06), Kendra Davidson (29th, 25:41) and Keira Cote (31st, 26:11) were the Pride’s top five.

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