Hayley Jackson set what she thought was a reasonable goal heading in to Saturday's DeSales Invitational at DeSales University.

"Finishing in the top 25 was my goal coming in," an exuberated Jackson admitted.

She exceeded that goal by finishing seventh with a time of 20:27:11. She talked about how her progress altered her goal during the race.

"I felt really well and then I was thinking top ten. Then I told myself that I just want to medal. I was realizing that I was up with them and I thought to myself, 'Wow, this normally doesn't happen all the time.' I was really, really happy."

Jackson described the conditions during the race as, "perfect." The weather was unseasonably cold and very overcast which made most of the runners happy.

Others girls on the Northampton squad found the climate just as conducive as four other Konkrete Kids finished in the top 50 in the girls' race, all of whom are freshman.

Lyndsey Gallagher finished 22nd with a time of 21:16.43 while Jessica Hendricks finished not too far behind her in 26th with a time of 21:24.45. Tyleen Lopez, with her time of 21:38.90, took the 31st spot and Tatiana Lopez finished 35th with a time of 21:52.57.

The efforts of Jackson and the freshman quartet earned the Northampton girls' squad a fourth place team finish with 121 total points. Ahead of them were Northwestern, Perkiomen Valley, and Parkland.

"[Team wins] are very important to us," said Jackson. "Hopefully it continues for us as well. As a team we are really trying to push it to get better."

For the gentlemen, senior Chris Traugher led the K-Kids as he finished 27th with a time of 17:44.09. Behind him were Kendrick Schell who ran an 18:31.00 race which placed him 58th and sophomore Lucas Yost finished 95th with a time of 19:04.28.

Jackson and her fellow senior runners, Makayla Miller and Kim Larena, are leading a young group of freshman through a grueling cross country season and achieving accolades along the way. The K-Kids hope to be increasing their goals as the season goes along just as Jackson did on Saturday at DeSales.

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Northampton had a home cross country meet last Tuesday, Sept. 10. It was a very hot day, but there were some very good performances.

The girls beat Whitehall 17-40, but lost to Parkland 21-36. Their overall record is 3-1.

Northampton's first four girls ran extremely well as they all finished within the top-eight overall runners.

Joelle Perelli lead the way with a 4th place finish in 20:42. Hayley Jackson was 5th in 20:55; Lyndsey Gallagher was 7th in 21:21; and Jessica Hendricks was 8th in 21:23.

Tyleen Lopez had a very strong race as she was the fifth runner and finished 17th overall in 22:39. There were a total of 83 girls in the race.

"I was very happy with the girls effort at only our second meet in extremely warm temperatures," Benner said.

The boys lost to both Parkland 18-45 and Whitehall 21-39, dropping their record to 2-2.

Chris Traugher ran a very strong race and came away with a fourth place finish in 17:31.

"It was encouraging to see Chris run that well early in the season," Benner said.

Kendrick Schell also had a good day breaking 19 for the first time. He ran a 18:58, which was good for 18th place. There were a total of 103 boys in the race.