Though South Whidbey’s Falcons prefer to fly in flocks when on the cross country course, they’re still able to do just fine on their own.

At the Capital High School Invitational in Olympia Saturday, the Falcon boys and girls were separated to race by class, forcing them to rely on their individual strengths. And though the field was loaded with some of the toughest teams in the state, such as Jackson and Auburn, little South Whidbey showed it could keep up or better.

Most successful under the stratified race format were the Falcon girls. Taking the team’s best placing of the day was junior Nancy Godsey. In the 60-strong junior girls race, Godsey ran the 2.33-mile course in 16 minutes, 5 seconds to place second behind race winner Lexie Miller, a 15:49 finisher. Also sneaking into the top 10 was Becky Gabelein, who turned in a finish time of 17:10.

Among the seniors, Callie Supsinskas was tops for South Whidbey, placing fifth in 15:24 behind Bremerton’s Lih Kuhlman. Supsinskas ran the best South Whidbey time on the day.

In the sophomore race, Mary Bakeman was third in 15:35 behind Capital’s Ariel Taylor, a winner in 15:18. Also making the top 25 were Falcons Britta Madison and Melissa Mydynski. Doing the job for the team in the freshman race was Katy Gordon, who established herself as the Falcons’ number-four runner with a 16:18, eighth-place finish in her race.

For the boys, senior James Sundquist was again the fleetest, taking 10th in his race at 12:41 behind the 11:32 clocked by winner Caleb Knox of Jackson. Also placing for the team was sophomore JD Peters, who was eighth in 13:08 in his race. Among the freshmen, Jason Fitz was the only top-10 finisher for South Whidbey, taking sixth in 14:06 behind the 12:43 pace set by Capital’s Gradon Manning. Falcon Kurt Warwick was 11th in the race.

Also running for the boys were Jeff Strong and Phil Schorr as seniors and Chris dePender as a sophomore. Junior Holton Schmitt sat the race out due to a tight hip.

The Falcons run next in a tropical paradise as they head to the Iolani Invite on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. They leave later this week for the Saturday race, a trip for which they have been raising money all summer.