By Jim Newell

Review Editor

It was a soggy, slow, muddy and overall dreadful course at the Oxford Invite on Friday, but the rain and mud and did not stop the Dragon runners from making great strides at the cross country meet.

The Lake Orion boys cross country team won the meet at Friendship Park in Orion Township, beating out 13 other teams, while the girls team had a strong showing, finishing in third place out the field of eight teams.

The boys team continued to dominate meets by getting their top five runners in the top 10. The Dragons finished with a low score of 29, easily beating second place

Davison, which scored 61.

Oxford finished third at 100, and Rochester Adams finished fourth at 115.

Lake Orion senior Adam Hafeli finished second overall in the race with a time of 17:11.9, followed by senior Clayton Kuiper with a time of 17:12.8.

Seniors Jacob Gleason (17:21.7), Will Houvener (17:24.3) and Hong Bing Tang (17:25.4) finished seventh, eighth and ninth, respectively.

Also running strong races for the Dragons were junior Luke Peardon (11th), senior Ronnie Leonard (13th) and junior Nathan Yee (28th).

On the girls side, the Lady Dragons finished with a score of 97, behind second place

Rochester (50) and meet winner Oxford (48).

Dragon freshman Addison Verlinden was the top runner for Lake Orion, finishing fifth overall with a time of 21:02.4.

Senior Alexandra Boes was 19th overall (22.03.5), sophomore Lauren Dumeah was 23rd (22:08.5), sophomore Maddie Feurig was 26th (22:10.8) and sophomore Mackie Shoskey was 41st (23:09.8).

Freshman Luciana Lacroix, senior Kendall Osborne, junior Amanda Bryant, senior Anna Pheasant and senior Alayna Tisch also had strong performances for the Dragons.

The Lake Orion cross country teams next compete in the OAA Red Jamboree no. 3 beginning at 4 p.m. Thursday at Clintonwood Park in Clarkston.