Chilliwack cross-country runners took on athletes from Surrey to Hope and everywhere in between last week at the 12th annual Chilliwack Invitational on Island 22.

About 250 runners from 26 Fraser Valley schools gathered for the race hosted every year by Vedder middle school.

"There's not a lot of meets out there for cross-country, and I think Chilliwack is a beautiful venue to run in," said race organizer and Vedder middle coach Sue Northey, "and it's also really nice for us to have a home meet so we're not always traveling,".

In all, seven Chilliwack schools came out to capitalize on their home track advantage.

Megan Muir of G.W. Graham took top spot in the middle school girls 3.7-km race (15:18) followed by Vedder middle runners Jennifer Wiebe (16:57) and Amarit Toor (17:02).

In middle school boys action, Vedder's Tanner Geary came in first (14:50) while Unity Christian's Dylan Ramdial (15:01) edged out Mt. Slesse's Paul Braila (15:16) for second.

Kristy Ricard of Chilliwack middle took second place in the 4.2-km junior girls race (17:15), coming in only 12 seconds behind the first-place Abbotsford runner.

In the junior boys 5.8-km race, G.W. Graham runners Jesse MacDuff (21:39) and James Rawson (21:44) narrowly missed the podium, placing fourth and fifth respectively.

Sardis runner Ashley Heisler took second place in the senior girls 4.2-km event in 17:20, and hard on her heels was Chilliwack secondary's Jen Prior, who finished fourth with a time of 17:20.

In senior boys action, Chilliwack's top finisher was Chilliwack secondary's Charles Dyck, who ran the 5.8-km race in 22:36 and came in eighth.