Newtown High School’s girls’ and boys’ cross country teams had strong showings in a pair of meets this past week. They competed in the 32nd Bethel Cross Country Invitational on September 21, then raced in South-West Conference action at Eisenhower Park in Milford on September 24. Results are as follows:

Bethel Invite

The Newtown girls, led by top finisher Hannah Schwartz, were second as a team to Cheshire. The Nighthawks’ placements added up to 71 points, and Cheshire had 41. Schwartz finished the 5K run in  time of 21:08.95. Teammate Brianne Moulder was third in 21:16.43. The rest of Newtown’s top seven are: 20. Kelly Coughlin, 23:26.60; 21. Bridget Spies, 23:32.72; 29. Valerie Kadysheva, 23:52.55; 32. Kiera Elkow, 24:13.63; 44. Kathryn D’Alessandro, 25:16.80.

The NHS boys also had a second-place team finish. Newtown had 40 points and Darien won the meet with 20. Newtown’s top seven are: 5. Christopher Gamble, 17:47.27; 7. Grandon Smith, 18:16.28; 8. Joey Whelan, 18:17.95; 9. Tom Floros, 18:26.37; 11. Ethan Burg, 18:31.48; 13. Nick Swenson, 18:40.00; 16. Nate Steinebrey, 18:51.14.

The junior varsity girls were led by race winner Sarah Mawdsley and seventh-place finisher Anna Pinckney.

Newtown’s junior varsity boys dominated, taking the 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8 spots, as well as registering 17 of the top 30 spots.  They were led by Kevin Gorman, Kyle Mangold, and Don Sun.

SWC Competition

In their SWC meet, the girls fell to New Fairfield 34-21, defeated host Lauralton Hall 15-46, and topped Weston 18-45 to improve to 7-2 this fall.

Moulder led the Hawks with a third-place finish, completing the course in 20:06, and was followed closely by Schwartz (20:16). The rest of the top seven are: 9. Mawdsley, 21:45; 10. Spies, 21:53; 11. D’Alessandro, 21:57; 16. Elkow, 22:35; 17. Pinckney, 22:47.

The boys defeated Weston 27-30 and lost their first meet of the campaign, falling 39-18 to New Fairfield to come away with a 7-1 record. The team’s fifth- through ninth-place runners were all separated by just five seconds. Results: 4. Gamble, 17:03.97; 8. Smith, 17:27.54; 11. Whelan, 17:41.14; 13. Floros, 17:45.94; 15. Burg, 18:21.11; 16. Gorman, 18:22.72; 17. Swenson, 18:23.14; 18. Steinebrey, 18:23.01; 19. Sun, 18:27.97.