Naperville North girls and boys cross country hosted their annual Twilight Invitational on Wednesday, taking home first and third in the varsity races, respectively.

The girls continued their successful season with another varsity team victory, led by junior Maggie Gamboa, who placed fourth overall with a time of 16:42.1. Girls Head Coach Dan Iverson was happy with how his team ran tonight, especially in regards to individual time drops.

“Yeah, we really ran great, in all four races we ran great, we had a lot of personal bests tonight and it was overall an awesome day,” Iverson said.

The boys team was proud of their performances by senior Jake Allen who finished first overall with a time of 14:43.93 and sophomore Gabe Ryan who ran a personal best at 15:38.3. Junior Tommy Paltzer had a great bounceback after falling within the first 100 meters of the race, coming back to finish 27th overall with a time of 15:43. Boys Head Coach Tim Brown was proud of his team, but also observed that there is room to improve.

“I think we ran pretty well, a lot of great things happened individually; obviously Jake Allen winning was huge, [we] had a lot of people PR, Gabe Ryan in the varsity race. I thought we ran great cohesively but we need to run more as a team and that is something we need to work on heading into DVC,” Brown said.

Encouraged by the support of his teammates, Allen was happy with his placement and hopes to continue his success next Saturday at the DVC Championship.

“It’s just a great feeling, this is the kind of meet you look forward to the whole year, getting to run on our home track and in front of everyone, and it’s just a great feeling. Hopefully, next week will be a little bit of a smoother race and we can get a team victory and bring home a DVC championship,” Allen said.

Both boys and girls cross country will continue their seasons on Oct. 19 at 9 a.m. at Waubonsie Valley for the Dupage Valley Conference Championships.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the DVC championship race was Oct. 16. The correct date is Oct. 19.