A theme developed near the top of the Windham Invitational cross country meet’s individual standings: Bulldogs, and plenty of them.

The Bedford High School boys cross country team finished the race on Sept. 22 with four of the top five times, and seven of the event’s top 12 individual results.

Thanks to a score of 22 points, the Bulldogs earned first in the eight-team field, led by Mark Hosang’s secondplace finish of 18 minutes, 25 seconds on the hilly course at Windham High School.

Hosang was the first of four Bulldogs to cross the finish line within 25 seconds of each other; Scott Johnson followed him two seconds later, Sam Daly was next at 18:32 and Dave Phelps was the fourth straight teammate to cross when he notched a time of 18:50.

Caleb Earnshaw wasn’t far off the pace, grabbing eighth overall with a time of 18:59 to round out Bedford’s top five.

“They’ve been improving big time, and the times have been going down as the season’s progressed,” said boys head coach Craig Blahnik. “The course ran a little long, but they performed extremely well today.”

The Lady Bulldogs placed second with 78 points. Morghan Linehan and Margo Cassidy crossed the line within one second of each other in a close race for top team honors. Linehan was ninth overall in 22:34, followed immediately by Cassidy.

Neither runner could keep pace with Merrimack Valley’s Brianna Tevnan and her winning result of 20:19. Grace Ouelette, Hannah Zeltner and Kris Larosa rounded out the scoring during a race head coach Emily Blahnik described as an extended training session for the Manchester Invitational on Saturday, Sept. 26.

“One of the main reasons that is such a big race for us is that we’re looking towards states,” said the Lady Bulldog mentor. “We’re very young, and for a lot of the freshmen this will be the first big meet they’ll see. It should give them a leg up.”

Both BHS teams competed in the large-school category at the Manchester Invitational. The boys placed sixth of 30 teams, many from Class L. Johnson, who finished 13th in the category with a time of 16:57, led the team, followed by Hosang, who ran the course in 17:08. Daly, Phelps and Earnshaw followed to account for Bedford’s score.

The Lady Bulldogs finished 16th among 22 large schools, led by Linehan in 29th overall. Cassidy was 62nd, Ouelette placed 64th, Zeltner finished 80th, and Katherine Lindberg was 109th.

Of the top five Bedford finishers at either race, only Ouelette is a senior.

During the state meet last year, the Lady Bulldogs finished eighth out of 16 teams, but Emily Blahnik said she has high expectations as this year’s competition draws closer.

“To compare them to last year, right now they are head and shoulders better,” said Blahnik. “They put in the miles during the offseason, and it’s really paying off.”