It was back to the difficult grind of the rugged O-K Gold Conference for Wayland’s cross-country teams Wednesday. And it wasn’t pretty for the Wildcats.

After getting off to a terrific start to the season, the Lady Wildcats had to settle to fifth place in the first Gold jamboree of the season, held at South Christian’s athletic complex. East Grand Rapids and Grand Rapids Christian tied for first with 39 team points apiece, Forest Hills Eastern had 82, South Christian 104, Wayland 132 and Middleville Thornapple Kellogg 145. Wyoming did not field a girls’ team.

On the boys’ side, Wayland managed to edge Wyoming by one point to take sixth with 189. East GR won it with 31, GR Christian had 37 South Christian 80.

Forest Hills junior Jami Reed was individual medalist at 20:26.52. Wayland’s top runner was sophomore Rylee Cronkright, who finished 22^nd in 21:38.38. Senior teammate Maggie Whitney was 26^th in 21:56.07.

Rounding out the scoring were sophomore foreign exchange student Mie Tornbjerg 31^st, freshman Naomi Oosterhouse 46the and junior Zoe Antel 64^th.

East Grand Rapids sophomore Evan Bishop was boys’ individual medalist at 16:45.54.

Senior Ethan Killips led Wayland in 56^th at 21:08.20, sophomore Jacob Jelsema climbed to 60^th in 21:16,55, sophomore Ian Russell was 64^th, Gabe Attruia 85^th and Jarod Geerlings 89^th.