By Cort Reynolds
The Ada cross country team ran its season-opening meet at the 12-team Ben Logan Early Bird Invitational last Tuesday.

"Overall, it was a pretty good meet," said Bulldog head coach Josh Klein. "The boys did not finish in the order I had anticipated  - which is exciting, but also shows we have some more work to do over the next couple weeks to make sure we are getting ourselves in shape."

Ada senior Hunter Wells posted the best Bulldog finish. He came in 46th in the field of over 100 runners with a time of 21:56.7, which was three seconds faster than last year's first meet. "He is still working on getting his time down," said Klein.

Sophomore newcomer Seth Swaney ran second for Ada and finished 62nd overall in 23:29.1. "I expected Seth to take our third spot, but he impressed himself and ran hard," noted the coach.

Sophomore Riley Ferguson ended up 71st with a time of 24:00.4, which was 1:07 faster than last year at this time. "He is still working on getting time down," said the coach.

Freshman Connor Daugherty came in 89th with a time of 26:21.2 in his first meet. "Connor surprised everyone," said Klein. "I expected him to be fifth or sixth runner. He dropped about four minutes off his practice 5k time."

Freshman Robby Waters finished 93rd in 27:19.1 as the fifth and final Bulldog scorer. Klein noted that he "dropped one minute off of his practice 5k time."

Sophomore Keegan Giddens came in 96th in 28:44.4 "He ran slower than expected, but will easily be in our top five funners throughout the season," said Klein.

Freshman Xander Wells finished 101st in 38:22. "The hills were tough on Xander," said Klein. "I expect to see his time be sub-30 at the Grove meet."

Sophomore newcomer Ashton Cowan ended up 102nd in 38:51.1 Klein added that Cowan dropped a minute off of his practice 5k time.

Div. II 2018 state qualifier Jonathan Alder won both the boys and girls team titles easily. The JA boys boasted the first five finishers and won with a perfect score of 15 points.

Emmanuel Christian took second place with 86 points, followed by North Union (96), Tecumseh (103), meet host BL (111), Marion Harding (183) and Triad (188) in seventh. Ada was 12th with 368 points.

Ada pulled out of Saturday's scheduled meet at the Seneca East Invitational. The Bulldogs are slated to run in the Columbus Grove Invitational Saturday morning, August 31.

"With Columbus Grove being a flat course, I expect to see our times drop significantly - which will be a great morale booster for the team, and (for) individual goal-setting," said Klein.