The Langley Middle School cross country team hosted the league finals Thursday at South Whidbey High School and ran away with the league championship.

“The wind was howling and the power was out, but that did not stop the Cougar runners from putting in their finest performance of the season,” Cougar coach Jack Terhar said.

The girls put on a show by placing seven runners in the top twenty. Lillianna Stelling led the way by placing second out of

60 runners with a time of 10 minutes, 4 seconds over the 1.5-mile course.

She was followed by Jessica Cary in seventh, Anastasia Lenior in eighth, Taya Jae in 11th, Marina Kovic in 12th, Anna Hood, 16th and Audrey Digirolamo, 19th.

The girls first-place finish would not have been possible without the help of students Ellie Greene, Desiree Peterson, Nora Felt, Ellie Bennett, Cassie Thomson, Katie Hardaway, Sylvie Kaul-Anderson, Sienna Schaal, Hannah Schupp, Catlynn Christensen, Carly Pate, Scarlett Inches, Michelle Casey and Taylor Tran. The girls edged second-place Kings by five points to win their league championship.

“The boys were not to be outdone by the girls or the wind or the power outage; they placed nine runners in the top 20,” Terhar reported.

Jimmy Price placed third with a time of 9:49, Richard Carmichael was fourth, Andrew Holt came in fifth, Zach Comfort was eighth, Cameron Baldwin 11th, Anthony Jones 14th, Haydel Nichols 17th, Adam Baester was 19th and Michael Cavender, 20th.

“This was good enough for a first-place finish with 33 points compared with second-place Kings with 51. Also running well was Spencer Kozarek, Will Mellish, Max Corell and Thomas Allen,” Terhar added.

The team will celebrate with an all-you-can eat ice cream feed at a date to be announced.