ADAMS TWP — This season, the Mars cross-country team is trying to look at the big picture — even if that means going out of state.

The Planets competed at the prestigious McQuaid Invitational in Rochester, N.Y., on Saturday — now in its 48th year — with the boys team capturing the varsity AA-2 division, while the girls came away with an impressive fifth-place showing.

“The appeal was to get away from Pennsylvania and western Pennsylvania competition,” said Mars second-year coach Dale Boring. “We wanted to simulate the state meet.”

The Mars boys team defeated 28 other teams, as well as some individuals for a total of 216 runners.

Chris Georgiadis and Scott Slaney finished 11th and 12th overall, with times of 15:52 and 15:59, respectively, over the three-mile course.

Brendan Knox (21st, 16:19), Nathan Mrdjenovich (28th, 16:30) and Frankie Petrini (39th, 16:32) rounded out the top five to give Mars 109 team points, 38 ahead of runner-up Greece Athena.

“This was really important,” Georgiadis said. “I was at the state meet last year and this simulated a state meet. A lot of kids are not experienced at the state meet and I think our team can get there.”

Said Slaney, “We knew we could put together a really good-looking team. Chris and I have been running really well as a strong front two. We knew it would be more up to our third, fourth, fifth guy to get up as far as they could if we were going to do well.

“Our spread from the first runner to the fifth was (40) seconds and that was really, really cool,” Slaney added.

Gage Zimmerman (17:06) and Mitch Comport (18:09) also took part for the boys.

“It may sound arrogant, but I expected our boys team to do well,” Boring noted. “I expected them to be first or second, but I didn't think they'd win by 40 points.”

“We were very unfamiliar with these schools from New York and Ohio,” Georgiadis said. “The courses are very flat, very different, like a sprint. I'm not hurting much after this race.

“I never thought I'd have times like that,” Georgiadis added.

On the girls side, the Planets were one of 34 varsity teams plus unattached runners and partial squads in the varsity 2-AA division that totaled 246 competitors.

Maggie McChesney led the way for Mars at 20th place with a time of 19:34.

Liz Smialek (34th, 19:53), Shannon McChesney (48th, 20:06), Reilly Butler (58th, 20:15) and Jessica Monberg (62nd, 20:18) rounded out the scorers with Maria Monberg (20:59) and Amanda Alikhani (21:03) also finishing for the Planets.

“The girls, we thought would finish in third or fourth place, so they were not that far off,” Boring said. “They were two points out of fourth place.”

Mars finished with 209 team points with Walsh Jesuit winning the event with 96 points. Clarence (117), Lakewood, Ohio (147) and Victor Central (207) placed second through fourth.

Mars was 59 points ahead of the sixth-place team, Iroquois (268).

“You never get to see this kind of race,” Boring said. “It was exactly what we wanted. It was really worth the trip.”