MODESTO – The Sierra boys won the small schools division and the Timberwolves girls took third in Saturday’s 10th-Annual Sierra Cross Country Invitational at Legion-Tuolumne Regional Park in Modesto. The Weston Ranch girls placed fourth.

 For the second year in a row, Sierra’s Josh Spooner finished second overall to Patterson’s Nathan Stanton on the 5-kilometer course – but it was extremely close with Stanton clocking 16 minutes, 23 seconds and Spooner 16:24.

 “Stanton took me by surprise and was faster at the end,” Spooner said. “But it was a good race and I did my best.

 “Last year we finished 1-2 as well, but this year our times are 20 to 30 seconds faster.”

 Weston Ranch’s Brendon Curtright was sixth in the small-schools division and ninth overall.

 “I didn’t have a good practice Friday,” Curtright said. “I was up front in the beginning but dropped back a bit at the end.”

 Haley Silva of Sierra raced to a second-place overall girls finish in 20:03.

 “I ran as hard as I could,” Silva said. “But I did not get the time and the place I wanted.”

 Also picking up a top-10 finisher shoe bag was Weston Ranch’s Fattima Momini with a ninth-place overall and seventh place in the small schools.

 “There was a lot of good competition,” Momini said. “It was tough to keep pushing.”

 Other top finishers in the small-schools boys were Garet Stone (eighth, 17:47), Brandon Rogers (ninth, 17:49) and Aaron Mackey (11th, 17:58), all of Sierra.

 In the girls competition from Sierra, Kyndall Riley (21:55) finished 11th and Candace Lao (22:15) was 13th. Weston Ranch’s Angel Flores (22:41) finished 18th and Zehra Momini (22:59) was 20th.

 In sophomore boys competition on the two-mile course, Alex Scherry (11:26) of Sierra finished eighth and Weston Ranch’s Jimmy Sekhon (5:54) was 14th.

 The Weston Ranch freshman boys finished third and were led by Nicholas Curtright with a fourth-place finish in 12:01. From Sierra, Trevor Ryan (12:12) was 10th and Arish Balasubramen (12:23) was 15th.

 Diana Cruz (14:22) from Sierra was fifth in the freshman girls and Weston Ranch’s Jordan Kmiec (15:03) was 15th.

 In the junior varsity boys/girls combined race, Jesus Gomez (12:03) of Sierra was second and teammate John Machado (12:24) was fourth.