ABOVE: Fairmont's Macy Hanson jumps out to an early lead at the I-90 invitational girls 5000-meter race at Cedar Creek Park on Thursday.

FAIRMONT – The Fairmont Cardinals cross-country boys and girls teams hosted the 46th annual I-90 invitational Thursday evening, bringing in 10 teams from across the region to take on the course at Cedar Creek Park.

Fairmont was able to secure the fourth-place finish in both the boys and girls races, but another stunning performance by the No. 1-ranked girls runner Macy Hanson was the highlight of the event.

“It’s our big invitational we’ve done for 46 years, it’s the biggest one we’ve done,” said Fairmont cross-country head coach Stew Murfield. ” When it first started, it was all the schools along I-90. Now, it’s kind of expanded from that. It’s been our biggest meet, home meet. So, we’ve had it for many years. It’s always been a good meet, a competitive meet. The team did really well. The boys scored well. We got fourth place out of 10 teams total.”

The 10 teams participating in the event were Fairmont, Martin County West/Butterfield-Odin, Jackson County Central, Blue Earth Area, Heron Lake-Okabena, Madelia, North Union, St. James, St. Peter and Worthington. St. Peter took first in both the boys race (47) and the girls (45).

Leading the Fairmont girls was Macy Hanson, running a blistering 18:06.09, breaking both the school and course record securing a first-place finish.

Hanson’s first-place finish marks her fourth win of the season, which has her ranked No. 1 in 2AA division of the Big South Conference. She hasn’t been feeling much of the pressure, however, and is focused on finishing the season strong.

“I’ve suffered from that a little bit, but I’ve really worked really hard this year to just relax and slow down, live in the moment, and enjoy it while I have it,” said Hanson.

Also for Fairmont, Carys Gudahl took 13th with a time of 22:44.3 and Delaney Klug ran a 24:39.5, landing her in 29th place, while Kendra Blomster posted a 24:46.1 to finish 29th. With them was Brooklyn Stone coming in 37th running a 25:40.4 and Addison Lintleman, who ran a 26:24.9, landing her in 40th, while Reese Fenske came in 41st running a 26:31.8 and Anabell Watson came in 52nd after running a 28:06.0. Bringing it home for the Fairmont girls was Rylee Mayday (28:09.4, 53rd place), Paige DeBoer (28:14.2), Samantha Domeier (30:12, 63rd) and Elizabeth Hart (30:52.7, 64th).

The Fairmont boys were led by Cooper Gudahl, who secured sixth place by running a 17:47, and Devin Hanson, who ran an 18:30.6 to lock in a ninth-place finish. Braydon Lindsay posted a time of 18:55.3, finishing 15th, while Andrew Haugen ran an 18:56.2 to come in 16th and Leon Yang finished in 50th with a time of 21:47.7. Michael Hamlet came in 55th (22:27.8), while Matthew Senneff placed 56th (22:32.4) and Eli Winter finished in 73rd (24:50.8).

The team has two meets left before going to Waseca for sections hoping to make a run at state. They will be at Jordan High School Tuesday.