MARYSVILLE — The Arlington high school cross country team had a lot to celebrate in the darkness of the Tomahawk Twilight Invitational Oct. 3 at Cedarcrest Golf Course.

The girls team is making long strides to becoming a state contender, as they finished second in a field of 22 teams, with a 142 score.

“That was the best girls performance I’ve ever seen,” said Eagles coach Mike Shierk. “They are really buying into this running as a pack mentality. They were really excited and focused for this and they nailed it.”

Arlington’s top six runners finished with in 18 seconds of each other, starting with Teresa Wadey’s 19th-place showing of 19:43.46 and continuing with Kristin Wreggelsworth 24th-place showing of 19:57.98. The next three runners of Katie Anderson, Yuki Dorff and Bryna Prause finished 31, 42 and 47 respectively.

“Teresa has been running great this year and I’m really excited about Katie. She beat a lot of top-ranked runners.”

Shirk thinks of this race as a mark of the season for his girls to improve upon and celebrate.

“We’re at the point now where we are thinking, ‘We can do this,’” he said. “We can get to the next level — being the state meet.”

For the Arlington boys, James Clark ran the 3.1-mile race in a blistering 16:25.96 to set a new school record by three seconds.

“He was flying — he’s an animal,” Shierk said. “Dylan Hopper from Cascade sprinted out there and James, being the frontrunner that he is, basically ran out there with him.”

As a team, the boys finished 10th, with a 287 mark. Following Clark for Arlington was Justin Goheen, who finished 48th with a time of 17:35.01.

The winners for the boys and girls races were Dylan Hopper (Cascade) at 15:46.37 and Maddie Meyers (Northwest) at 18:19.39 while Inglemoor had 101 points and won the boys team and the Eastlake girls were top on the board with 57.