Courville, Alexander lead Mission in Missoula
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MISSOULA — All the Mission cross country runners who competed in the Runner’s Edge Cross Country Invitational Thursday improved on their times from the Mountain West Classic.
Both the Runner’s Edge Invitational and the Mountain West Classic were run on the same 3-mile course at the University of Montana Golf Course.
Like they’ve been doing all season, Paden Alexander and Ashley Courville led the way for the Mission harriers. Courville finished 20th with a time of 21:25 and Alexander crossed the line 25th with a time of 17:43. None of their times were PRs, but Mission coach Patrick Murphy said that it was a tough, challenging course and both cut significant time off from when they ran the course about a month ago.
“It’s neat to run the same course twice in a season, so you can see the improvement,” Murphy said.
Murphy is hoping that Alexander and Courville will lead their teammates at the state championship this week with a top 15 finish. He said both of them have a realistic shot at being an all-state runner if they push themselves to their potential.
Alexander will be leading Brian Schock, Mauro Grosso, Dakota Matt, Karl Daniels, Jarred Smith-Brown and Brandon Bontrager at the state championship. Courville will lead Jane Makepeace and LaGlen Mitchell.
The state championship will be at the Bill Roberts Golf Course in Helena Saturday. The Class B girls run at 1:45 and the boys run at 2:50 p.m.
