It was a sunny Saturday for Whiteoak at the Aaron Reed Memorial Invitational at Southeastern High School as the Wildcats took the top two individual positions in the boys race and Lady Wildcat freshman Addy Hauke earned her first medal.

Whiteoak junior Landen Eyre blazed the 3.16-mile challenging course in 15:55. Senior Weston Blair made sure the dynamic duo took the top two spots in the 118-man field. Blair clocked a career best 16:27.

Coach Doug Hughes was wowed by their performances.

“These two kids were just flat out dominant today. This has been a very popular invitational the past two decades with many state level teams and state podium runners. The best time recorded at this invitational since 2012 was 16:20 (Eyre last year) and Landen ran an incredible 15:55. That’s an unbelievable time on this course in September. This is not a short course or a fast course. Most years 16:45 to 17:10 have won this race. Then Blair, a state qualifier as a sophomore runs the fourth best time in the last 11 years. This is the best Weston has ever looked at this point of the season. He’s working harder than ever and it’s really showing.”

Whiteoak’s Shawn Mitchell-Cox and Jake Ward finished 73rd and 74th, respectively, with times if 21:53 and 21:56. Continuing the back-to-back finishes were Austin Richards (97th) and Shane Mitchell-Cox (98th) with times of 24:03 and 24:21.

Whiteoak freshman Addy Hauke ran an impressive race, finished 22nd out 75 runners and completed the challenging course in 25:18 to earn herself her first medal at an invitational.

The Whiteoak junior high teams also fared well as three of the five runners earned medals. Natalie Burnett finished 16th out of 64 girls with a time of 16:04. Aubrey Swafford was 22nd (16:40), Kenley Juillerat 27th (17:00) and Kylie Mitchell 53rd (20:47). On the boys side Jaden Fitzgerald finished 50th (16:09).

Information for this story was provided by Doug Hughes, Whiteoak cross coach.