(HCC Sports Inforation)

The final Blue Dragon Cross Country Invitational women’s championship at Rice Park turned out to be a white-knuckle wait for the official team scores to be posted.

Nine of the first 11 runners to finish on a cool, humid Saturday morning were either a Hutchinson or McPherson College runner. When the final standings were printed, the Lady Dragons retained their Blue Dragon Invitational team championship by a narrow seven-point margin.

HCC edged McPherson 25-32. Pratt and Barclay College didn’t have enough runners to post a team score, but the Beavers did have two runners finish in the top eight.

McPherson’s Ashley Huizar won the women’s individual title in a course-record time of 15 minutes, 9 seconds, winning by a full 14 seconds over Pratt’s Elana Botello.

All five Lady Dragon runners to figure into the scoring were once again freshmen.

Maria Fernandez was HCC’s top runner for the third-straight week after finishing third with a time of 15:28 over the 3.82K course. Diosha Johnson was right behind Fernandez in fourth in 15:32.

Rebekah Sweet placed sixth in 16:07, Shannon Prescott was 8th – placing ahead of two McPherson runners – in 16:29. Amber Boos was 11th in 16:43.

McPherson runners finished 1st, 5th, 9th, 10th and 18th.

Other Lady Dragon results were: Taylor Stewart (13th in 16:54), Alexys Davis (15th in 17:16) and Jessica Smith (16th in 17:39).

Next season, the Blue Dragon Invitational will be moved to Hutchinson’s new cross country course in northeast Hutchinson and will be contested on the standard 5K course.

Hutchinson will compete in the Tabor College Invitational on Saturday in Hillsboro.