Newtown High School's girls' and boys' cross country teams had solid performances in their season-opening races, at Immaculate High in Danbury, on September 12.

The girls defeated Kolbe Cathedral 15-50 and Joel Barlow of Redding 17-46, and fell 26-30 in a close one with Immaculate.

Lu Hage was second overall, finishing the course in 20:11, Camille Johnson followed in third in 20:33, Hallie Filan placed fifth in 21:37, and Cate Norton placed tenth in 21:58.

"I am ecstatic with our first race from top to bottom. We had a lot of PRs on a tough course and really competed well," Newtown Coach Rich Marcello said.

The boys defeated Kolbe 15-50 and Barlow 20-40, and lost 23-46 to Immaculate.

Sophomore Nick Jacobs was runner-up in a time of 16:53, marking the fastest time for a Newtown runner during the NHS coaching tenure of Coach Carl Strait, in his third season.

Joel Duval placed fourth in 17:21, Christian Lestik came in eighth in 17:45. Josh Bent was 12th in 18:18, and Jack Kuligowski and Maxwell Bloomquist followed in 13th and 14th with times of 18:34 and 18:39.

Newtown Coach Carl Strait was pleased to see Kuligowski and Bloomquist, both sophomores, along with juniors Evan Hildenbrand and Alex Wong, step up. Hildenbrand and Wong were 19th and 20th, respectively, with times of 19:14 and 19:25.

"I'm definitely pleased with the effort the kids are putting in every day - very coachable, staying disciplined," said Strait, whose team was without one of its strongest runners, Ryan Escoda.

After peaking early last year and falling short of a championship, Strait wants his squad to work its way toward its high point come postseason this fall.

"We're building slowly. This is encouraging, this gives us direction," he said.