Junior Audrey Paglia was one of four Foresters among the top 20 runners as the Lake Forest women placed second out of a dozen teams at the Elmhurst College Earlybird Invitational on Friday. The Forester men finished 10th.
Paglia placed 13th in the 122-runner field at Eldridge Park and she completed the rare 4-kilometer race in 16:21.5 She was the third runner on her team behind fellow juniors Ellen Szostak and Yaneli Guajardo. Szostak was 10th in 16:14.0 and Guajardo 12th with a time of 16:20.6. Senior Adriane Balaram finished 18th in 16:49.4 and classmate Estafania Ramirez 30th in 17:17.6
The Elmhurst women won the meet with just 27 points, 54 fewer than the Foresters, who edged out third place North Central College by just three points.
Sophomore Christian Reyes led the Lake Forest men with a 45th-place finish and 6-kilometer time of 21:09.6. Senior Aidan Pratt was next on the team and 84th out of 124 finishers overall in 23:28.4.
North Central was first on the men's side with a perfect score of 15 points.
The next meet on Lake Forest's schedule is next Friday's Vic Godfrey Invitational at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside's Wayne E. Dannehl National Cross Country Course. The women's 6K race will start at 5:00 p.m. and the men's 8K will follow at 5:30.