Brooke Tyburski is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Northwest Christian High School for AZPreps365.com.

Northwest Christian High School’s cross-country team set several personal and season best records Saturday morning at the 47th annual Doug Conley Invitational at Shalimar Country Club in Tempe.

Northwest Christian had 18 runners compete in three races Saturday, including the boys non-varsity, invitational girls, and invitational boys races.

Northwest Christian’s best performance of the day was in the invitational boys 5K race. Senior Zach Beckner finished 4th among 155 runners with a time of 16 minutes, 38 seconds, and a pace of 5:21. The boys team finished the race with a score of 157 points and an average time of 17:47, with runners Jonah Archer, Thomas Lyons, Luke Poarch, and Riley Henze taking the rest of the top five spots for the Crusaders. They took places 27, 35, 40, and 50, respectively.

Beckner said the course was challenging but his strategy was to stay consistent.

“The dirt was different,” Beckner said. “We’ve never run Doug Conley before, so it was a little tough just because of all the dirt.

“On the back stretch, after mile two, there’s nobody out there and I got caught in between two groups, so I was running all by myself. That was definitely a hard part in the race.”

Coach Brandon Southall said that since it is early in the season his goals for this race were for his team to stay consistent, give a good effort, and be competitive against the bigger schools in the meet.

“We have a younger team,” Southall said. “We weren’t quite sure where we were going to be but they’re actually ahead of where I thought they would be this early in the season, so I’m happy with that.

“Zach had a good day moving through the front pack throughout the race and closing well to finish 4th.”

Sophomore Emma Buzbee had the best day for the Northwest Christian girls, finishing 53rd of 118 in the invitational girls race with a time of 22:33 and a pace of 7:16 while setting a new personal best.

All the boys on the junior varsity side also set personal best times, as well as senior Shea Giblin and junior Riley Henze.

The meet included 42 teams from around Arizona, including the reigning elite division champions, Highland High. Highland impressed throughout the meet, again having the top runner in both the girls and boys elite division races. Highland also had runners finish in all five top spots in the boys non-varsity and four top spots in girls non-varsity.

Beckner said he is looking toward the next meet already and that this meet was a good opportunity to train and stay consistent.

“We have Twilight coming up,” Beckner said. “Hopefully we can run fast there.

“I feel good [about my performance]. It’s still early in the season. We still have time to train.”

Northwest Christian’s cross-country team will be competing next at the Nike Desert Twilight XC Festival on Friday at the Grande Sports Complex in Casa Grande.