Courtesy Photo­Image Wyatt McGuire

North Platte’s Wyatt McGuire finished second Monday at the University of Nebraska invitational, running against the best high school cross country runners in the state.

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McGuire turned in his personal best time of 15:56.7 – 12 seconds behind first place runner Joe Harter of Millard West.

It was the first meet this year that McGuire didn’t win. He cut three seconds off his previous best time of the year.

The 5K race started extremely fast, North Platte Coach Dennis Fornander said, with the top runners finishing the first mile in 4 minutes, 55 seconds.

“He ran a good race,” Fornander said.

Wyatt, a junior, was the only North Platte runner to finish in the top 15 in either the boys or the girls competitions. Ace Haws had the second-best time for North Platte of 18:01.8, finishing 66th among the 159 runners.

There were 11 Class A teams in the race and the Kearney boys team won the meet.

North Platte freshman Victoria Tockey had the best time for the North Platte girls. Tockey finished in 17:03.3, in 75th place. Teammate Libby Burrows was 92nd with a time of 17:26 among the 230 girl runners.

Top five runners, Class A boys

1 Joe Harter, Sr. Millard West - 15:44.10 (ave 5:03.9/mile)

2 Wyatt McGuire, Jr. North Platte - 15:56.70 2 (5:08)

3 Mohamad Hamdan, Sr. Lincoln North Star - 16:02.10 (5:09.7)

4 Danny Aldaba, Sr. Fremont - 16:05.00 (5:10.6)

5 Austin Post, Jr. Millard West - 16:13.40 (5:13.3)

Boys team scores:

1 Kearney 38 (finishers in these places: 7, 9, 10, 12, 19, 29)

2 Lincoln Southwest 46

3 Fremont 51

4 Millard West 67

5 Bellevue West 129

6 Pap-LaVista South 131

7 Lincoln North Star 142

8 Lincoln Pius X 146

9 Papillion-LaVista 156

10 North Platte 213

11 Omaha Westside 222