Shawnee Mission Northwest junior Molly Born launched her 2016 cross country campaign with a first-place finish at the Greg Wilson Classic Saturday at Johnson County Community College, and she did so with ease. Born clocked in a 17:57.3 to beat the rest of the field by nearly 45 seconds. The SM Northwest standout ran 48 seconds faster than she did at the same meet in 2015 and widened the gap between her and the second-place finisher by 32 seconds. "It felt really good to get back on the cross country course and race again after the entire summer of kind of not racing," Born said. Born has been a front runner for the Cougars for the past two years, and figures to be again for her junior season. What was most encouraging to Born, though, about SM Northwest's first meet was how her team faired overall. Seniors Camille Henderson and Hannah Gruman placed 17th and 18th, respectively, and sophomore Riley Demo was not far behind in 21st to help the Cougars claim fourth overall in the team standings. "We're all working really hard," Born said. "We've got some freshmen who ran JV today, and they're all looking great. Once we get everyone together, we should have a really good team." Northwest coach Van Rose echoed Born's comments in regards to the Cougars' team depth. Rose believes that his varsity squad will continue to big strides as runners like freshman Gracie Goodpaster — who won the JV race — get more races under their belts. "We've got some people there that can pressure our fifth and sixth girls to be even better. It all comes down to running in a group," Rose said. "Those kids run in a group at practice, and they do it here. It's so important." While Rose was pleased to see how the Cougars packed up in the girls race, he felt that his boys runner needed to do a better job of running together. Michael Scott crossed the finish line at 17:21.3 to finish 35th overall, and James Lang was 13 seconds back in 46th place, but there was a gap of nearly a minute until Gavin Benoit came in as the Cougars' No. 3 runner. "I think when we go back and look at things, we've got a bunch of singleton races. We've got to try to pack up, get some strength in the group," Rose said. "That's what we're lacking right now. We've got to have guys running together." Scott believes that the top seven for the Cougars will push each other as the season goes on and produce better results as long as they trust Rose's training. "Not as good as expected, but this is only the first race," Scott said. "I'm hoping that everyone will get better." The SM Northwest boys placed 14th as a team. Reed, Kasunic place in top 10 for SM North girls Shawnee Mission North senior Amber Reed has some high expectations for herself for her final high school cross country season. Reed set the bar high for the rest of the season with a fourth-place finish at the Greg Wilson Classic, as she finished with a time of 18:57.6. "I felt great. It was really hard in the middle of the race, but I finished strong," Reed said. "I think everyone on our team did very well. I'm happy." Reed stuck with the front pack of runners for the first mile, but group started to break up in the middle of the race. The SM North senior stayed right on her pace, though, with the help of the mindset that she carries with her for each race. "The faster you run, the sooner you're done," Reed said. "That's my motto." Joining Reed in the top 10 was SM North sophomore Katie Kasunic. The Indians No. 2 runner placed eighth with a time of 19:57.3. "We kind of thought that those two girls had a good chance of being top 10, so they went out and did kind of what we expected them to do. I was really happy with the other girls since we only ran five," SM North coach Aaron Davidson said. "I was really with not just the top two, but all five of them I thought ran pretty good. It's a good starting point for us." Sophomore Abby Onnen, junior Molly Ryan and junior Cassie Raines rounded out the Indians' top five runners by placing 27th, 31st and 56th, respectively, as SM North finished just five points behind the Cougars in fifth. After Reed and Kasunic earned medals by placing in the top 20 for the SM North girls, Joseph Coddington stepped up to pace the Indians in the boys varsity race by finishing 13th overall. Coddington clocked in with a personal-best mark of 16:43.4. "I felt it went pretty good. I started out in that top three, top four pack, and that mile was really smooth," Coddington said. "Then they hit that two mile and started to kick it. I tried to keep up with them, but stayed at my own pace. Overall, it wasn't a bad race." With the Indians' top two runners not back from last season, Coddington is someone that Davidson is calling upon to lead SM North this fall. "Joe also had a really good summer. I think he's kind of taken himself to a new level as a runner as far as his work ethic and his attitude," Davidson said. "We talked about going out aggressive, and he went out and