King’s Fork High School’s boys’ and girls’ cross country teams both finished second out of six teams in a Conference 17 meet at Bells Mill Park Monday.

Paige Summers, No.-1 runner for the girl’s team, finished second amongst girls.

For the boys, junior Marcus Ramos and sophomore Tyler Gray battled right to the finish and led a pack of the top four boys that came in seventh through 10th overall, used the “pack running” philosophy to their advantage.

Bulldogs coach Steven Sheppard encourages his team to use the philosophy as much as possible.

The top seven girls for King’s Fork girls cross country include senior Paige Summers, senior Tytionnia Smith, junior Hannah Marston, sophomore Madison Schultz, freshman Cree Diggs-Brown, freshman Alexis Kyles and senior Amesha Miller.

For the boys, the top seven runners are junior Marcus Ramos, sophomore Tyler Gray, senior Trevell Monroe, freshman Jack Van Straten, senior team captain Jackson Stone, junior Lamont Jones and senior Angelo Cecchini.

“We want to be the best individually as we can, and we want to cheer on our teammates, as well,” Sheppard said. “I’m encouraging more pack running, so when they have that little doubt in their mind their teammate can encourage them to push forward.”

Sheppard’s goal is for his team to qualify for regionals with a good showing at the conference post-season meet next week. He wants the Bulldogs to finish in the top half of the teams.

“I think it is important to have incremental and realistic goals,” Sheppard said. “I want my runners to feel good about themselves when they know they’ve made small improvements. Its about improving day by day.”

The conference championship meet will be held at 4:30 p.m. Oct. 26 at Bells Mill Park.