Hannah Martin leads a pack of runners at the Grundy Center Cross Country Invitational.

The Gladbrook-Reinbeck Cross Country team made the short trek to Grundy Center on Thursday evening to compete in an invitational of made up of mostly NICL schools. There are several ranked teams and runners in the conference this year, which made the meet even more meaningful at this stage of the season.

The South Hardin girls pulled out the team title, in what some would call an upset of the likes of Denver and Dike-New Hartford. While the boys team title was won by Denver, who narrowly escaped a solid effort by the East Marshall boys. Individually, the gold medalist was Abi Watson from North Tama in the girls race and Tim Rose from South Hardin in the boys race.

The Rebels had their share of success on Thursday as well. Tyler Bovy led all of the runners from G-R with a 13th place finish (17:44). Nicole Adair led the girls squad with a 22nd place finish (17:18). Hannah Martin finished 39th (18:19) and Meg Edler finished 48th (18:47). Meanwhile, in the JV races, Vasya Strohbehn was 17th (21:51), as was Kelsey Schwartz (21:09). Amber Berendes finished 24th (23:18) and Cole Goos was 41st (27:05).

In the middle school fun run, Max Schweppe led the Rebels with a 7th place finish (6:10). Other runners for G-R: Jadon Spear – 6:53, Lily Ehlers – 7:00, Alex Schweppe – 7:20, Taylor Gienger 7:46, Zack Davis 7:56, Sami Al-Rabie 8:15, Preston Goos 9:56.

Gladbrook-Reinbeck will travel to Jesup (Jesup Golf Course) this week on Tuesday and to Eldora (Pine Lake) on Saturday. Both should be great running environments for the Rebels to compete and improve.