EUGENE - Members of the Crescent Valley High girls cross country team gathered under the tent as a slow rain began to fall Saturday afternoon at Lane Community College.

Dressed in their team shirts and unique zebra-striped shorts, they waited to find out what place they had finished at the OSAA 5A state cross country meet.

By the slimmest of margins, the Raiders brought home second for the second time in three years as they edged third-place Crater 91-92.

"It's really exciting especially because we were only second by one point," sophomore Meredith Wells said. "It's more exciting than last year when we were fourth by one point."

A year ago the Raiders edged Corvallis by a point for fourth.

With all five finishers in the top 14 overall, including race winner Megan Fristoe, Summit easily won the team title with an impressive 21 points.

CV's Charlotte Fisher was the top MWC finisher as she placed ninth. Wells, who won the Mid-Willamette Conference district meet last week, finished 15th.

"Things seemed to come together at the right time and yeah, especially our front four today just ran like horses out there," CV coach Tyler Bushnell said.

Fisher said her goal was to do better than her 26th-place finish a year ago and hopefully make the top 15.

"I'm extremely excited, like ecstatic," Fisher said after leaving the awards stand.

"I totally didn't expect it."

Fisher charted out the course last Sunday and that helped her know when to make a push.

"Last Sunday my dad and I came down here and walked the course so I just really wanted to get a good feel for it," Fisher said. "Right as you go down the last hill on the second loop, that's about 800 meters to go. When I was here on Sunday I said right there I'm going to try to get my kick and try to pass people. Despite how tired I was I tried to do that and it worked."

Fisher was in eighth until she was passed close to the finish line by Glencoe's Kaytlin Fischer.

"I didn't really see her when she was going, I was just trying to keep my pace," Fisher said. "Oh well, I'm not complaining."

Madeline Entrikin was 21st, Claire Krizan 23rd and Sara Storniolo 55th to complete CV's scoring.

West Albany was 11th with a 271. Sophie Kaplan led the Bulldogs with a 47th-place finish. Erin Jamison was 70th, Teal Barrett 74th, Jen Johnston 78th and Tiga Evans 89th to round out the scoring.

Corvallis' Brigid Behrens was 18th and Elena Gartner 44th, while South Albany's Anna Demchuck was 41st.

The Raiders don't lose a varsity runner to graduation so they could possibly make a run at first next year.

"We've got that same crew back as well as a good JV group that's pushing our varsity so that's definitely exciting," Bushnell said. "With all of them coming back it's going to be even that much more competitive."

5A boys

Crescent Valley brought home sixth place despite equalling the 146 points of Cleveland. Corvallis was seventh with a 193 after winning the MWC title last week. Crater won with a 25.

CV's Benjamin Condrea was the top MWC finisher, placing 14th. Teammates Lindon Powell and Matt Auer placed 20th and 21st, respectively. Also scoring for the Raiders were Will Strahl in 61st and Spencer Barrett in 74th.

CHS was paced by Max Goerchels in 32nd and Josiah Wai in 37th. Also scoring for CHS were Thor Dodson (43rd), Will Parke-Hoffman (60th) and Jeremy Parke-Hoffman (78th).

West Albany's Jordan Monroe was 18th with teammate Michael Shogren 47th.