Cross country runners race for the best time possible.

They run 100 miles over summer. They run in sunshine and rain showers. Thursday’s meet was run in the latter of those conditions. At the first meet of the year, though, South Whidbey wasn’t worried about time.

“It wasn’t even like we wanted to go all out,” said senior boys runner Ben Saari. “We’re just focusing on our race Saturday.”

“The first race of the year, I didn’t come out very fast,” Saari added.

Saari finished in fifth place with 18 minutes, 47 seconds. He ran off course coming around a loop through the wooded park behind the pool. The rain didn’t affect him; he ran the course set for the district race at South Whidbey High School earlier this week in more rain.

“It was super wet and I ran terrible, but it’s not really bad unless it gets muddy,” Saari said.

Will Zink sprinted in the last 100 meters on the approach to claim 10th place. He came from behind and sprinted past Cedarcrest junior Madison Waterman for a time of 19 minutes, 23 seconds.

Chantal White was the first girls runner to finish for the Falcons. White, a senior, finished sixth in 21 minutes, 28 seconds.

“I felt solid,” White said. “It was harder than I expected it to be.”

White came over a hill onto the main field at McCollum Park expecting to cross the finish line. She ran the same location two years ago, but the course changed. When she came around the pool the second time she saw the hill and began her kick before she realized the course was longer than she assumed.

“We didn’t run as hard as we usually go,” White said.

Falcons Lillianna Stelling, a sophomore, and Emily Martin, a senior, were eighth and ninth place, respectively. Stelling finished in 22 minutes, 15 seconds, and Martin was 12 seconds behind her.

Cedarcrest won both the boys and girls team scores with 28 and 25 points respectively. Archbishop Murphy was second and South Whidbey was third in both boys and girls team-race points.

Cedarcrest senior Cara Strodel won the girls race in 20 minutes, 20 seconds and finished 20 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Michaela Bartz.

Connor Ballew, a senior from Archbishop Murphy, won the boys race in 16 minutes, 51 seconds. Ballew crossed the finish line 39 seconds ahead of second-place runner and teammate Sam Holeman, a junior.

Falcon head coach Doug Fulton called the conference meet a “practice” for the South Whidbey Invite. More than 40 schools will compete at South Whidbey High School today.

Before the cross country begins, South Whidbey hosts the second annual Carl Westling Memorial 5k at 9 a.m. today at the high school.

Westling started the cross country program at South Whidbey in 1975 and remained involved at SWHS until he died in 2009.

“He’s the father of South Whidbey cross country,” Fulton said.