It wasn’t all that long ago that Josh Jones wasn’t into running, but he now has two-first place trophies from the Butler Road Race to his credit.

Jones made it back-to-back victories in the men’s 2K race, finishing this time in 6 minutes, 18 seconds. The effort bettered his time from last year by seven seconds.

Jones, 17, lives in Franklin Township and will be a senior at Slippery Rock High School this coming school year. He was urged to start running by former Rockets’ track and field coach Tony Consbruck.

“I had never run before my freshman year,” said Jones, who competes in the 1,600 and 800-meter runs at Slippery Rock. “Coach Consbruck got me into running and competing in summer road races. Now that it’s summer, I run three or four days every week. But during the season, it’s five. It feels good to win here again.”

With less than 100 yards remaining in the race, Jones was pushed by Josh Rader and Robert Miller, both of Butler, who finished one second from the top spot. Rader also was the runner-up in 2012 and 2013.

“I kept looking back to make sure they weren’t right up on me,” said Jones.

Four years ago, Holly Bauer competed in the women’s 5-mile race here and placed first in her age group. She switched to the 2K event this year and placed first overall with a time of 8:00.

“I caught up with everybody and got the lead with about a half mile left,” said Bauer, 38, from Saxonburg. “I’m doing a 15-mile training run in North Park (Sunday). I wanted to get some speed work in today and my goal was to come out and feel good.

“I also swim a lot,” she added. “If I’m not in the pool, I’m usually running. I get in about 40 miles per week.”

Bauer finished 31 seconds ahead of Mandy Hunt of Butler. The former makes use of a good portion of the county during her runs.

“I run at Alameda Park, in Saxonburg and on the Butler-Freeport Trail,” she said. “There are a lot of nice country roads around here.”

Note: The top men’s and women’s finishers in both the 5-mile and 2K event received the Rick Davanzati, Sr. Memorial Award. Davanzati, who died earlier this year, was a co-founder of the race, which began in 1976.