First came Mike Enfield, sprinting across the finish line in 18:30. Then came Ryan Erdman (18:37), followed by Ochan Adome (18:39), Matt Huseby (18:47) and Eric Johnson (18:50).

The top five finishers, all from Mankato East, gave the Cougars a perfect score of 15 Tuesday in their season-opening boys cross country meet at Land of Memories Park.

Sometimes pack running can be good, and sometimes not so good. On Tuesday it could not have worked out any better for East.

“I’m very excited about the way we ran as a team today,” Enfield said afterward. “I wanted to stay with the lead pack for the first mile and then to stretch things out in Miles 2 and 3.

“Every time I looked behind me I could see a lot of my teammates were still there. That’s encouraging when you know you’re running for a team that wants to give it everything they’ve got.”

The Cougars also grabbed the sixth spot at Jacob Seifert clocked an 18:54.

Completing the top 10 were Jamie Potthast (7th, 18:56) and Francis Dvorak (8th, 18:58) of Belle Plaine; Jacob Flitter (9th, 18:59) of Minnesota Valley Lutheran; and Dave Smothers (10th, 19:16) of East.

Belle Plaine finished second in the meet with 51 points. MVL was third at 97 and Martin Luther was incomplete.

In Tuesday’s girls meet, East junior co-captain Amanda Blain bested the field with a time of 15:51. Teammate Sara Lundgren was in second at 16:10 and Belle Plaine’s Holly Trost took third at 16:13.

Rounding out the top 10 were Bailey Thompson (4th, 16:25) of East; Irayna Fischer (5th, 16:31) of Minnesota Valley Lutheran; Erica Schneider (6th, 16:39) and Cassie Fink (7th, 16:52) of Belle Plaine; Bethany Murray (8th, 17:02) and Lexi Keckhaefer (9th, 17:05); and Ellen Schneider (10th, 17:28) of Belle Plaine.

Blain was hoping to run a little faster Tuesday but said she was satisfied with her time for the first meet. Her strategy was to just give it all she had.

“We’ve been practicing mostly in the mornings so today’s race was a little warmer than what we’re used to,” she said. “But I don’t think that was much of a factor. We all just need to keep working hard to get our times down.”

Lundgren, who finished second, hopes to improve as the season progresses.

“I’d like to make All-Big Nine this year and maybe qualify for state,” she said. “I didn’t do well in last year’s section meet because I had some trouble breathing. But I’m in much better shape right now, so that shouldn’t happen again.”

East won the team title with 24 points. Belle Plaine was second with 29 and both Minnesota Valley Lutheran and Martin Luther were incomplete.