NEWVILLE - Ruth Yoder, the Mifflin County cross country coach, knows that anything can happen in an invitational.
And for a change, something good happened to the Huskies' boys cross-country team Saturday at the Mid-Penn conference championships, which were held at Big Spring High School.
Mifflin County finished sixth in the team competition after only winning two dual meets in the regular season.
The Huskies also had two runners place in the top 35, both of whom were named All-Conference.
Paced by two seniors, the boys scored 181 points to edge out Carlisle by one point and just missed the top five by nine as arch-rival State College was fifth with 172 points.
Hershey won the team championship with 96 points, followed by Lower Dauphin (128), Cumberland Valley (132) and Central Dauphin (138),
The two seniors, who have been the top runners for the Huskies all fall, were Jon Colwell and Addison Monroe. Colwell was 10th overall with a time of 16:48, while Monroe was 21st as he came across the finish line in 17:02.
Winning the race was Big Spring's Vincent Todaro with a time of 16:11.
The course, which started on a large flat plain, wound through a wooded area adjacent to the school. The hilly terrain provided a constant up and down run over the 3.1 miles.
"This was a truly a tough course," Yoder noted. "It was the first time that we ran on it. At least the hills were up and down. We had the two all-conference runners and I was really happy with our sixth-place finish. I thought overall our boys ran really well. Patrick Parker had a very good day as did Darien Knudsen and Cullen Russler."
After Colwell and Monroe, the next three runners for Mifflin County finished within a 16-second span. Patrick Parker was 44th with a time of 17:34, while Darien Knudsen was next at 17:42 in 49th place. Rounding out the top five for the Huskies was Russler, who finished 57th with a time of 17:50.
Also running for Mifflin County were Chris Falkner, 82nd, 18:24; Trent Yoder, 85th, 18:27; and Shawn Reese, 124th, 18:55.
In the girls race, Mifflin County was 18th with a score of 490. Winning the race was Palmyra with 70 points, while Cumberland Valley was second with 87. Finishing third was State College with 109 points.
Winning the girls race was Mady Clahane of Cumberland Valley as she traveled the 3.1 miles in 18:48. Clahane beat out her teammate, Carol Stock, for first place by nine seconds. Clahane is just a freshman.
The top female from Mifflin County was Megan Becker; she was 63rd with a time of 21:49.
Next was Jessica Miller, who finished at 22:26 and was 79th. The other scorers for Mifflin County were Makayla Pearce, 101st, 23:01; Anna Taptich, 120th, 23:35; and Amanda Hassinger, 129th, 24:44.
Rounding out the Huskie runners were Makenna Pollock, 149th, 24:24; Analee, Gentzel, 154th, 24:44; and Latasha Yoder, 171st, 25:25.
"Overall we did pretty well with the girls," Yoder said. "Our first two runners, Megan and Jessica, had outstanding days. We finished a little higher than I expected."
In the junior varsity races, Mifflin County's got outstanding runs from Kaitlyn Yearick in the girls race and Josh Aultz, Noah Stewart, Hayden Hidlay and Shane Sennett in the boys part of the run.
Mifflin County will host the District 6 meet on Oct. 27, which will be held in Reedsville at the Mifflin County school complex.
