By Rich Winter

Well, we are one meet into the cross-country season and Custer's Joe Rush dropped a huge performance at Friday's Douglas Early Bird Invitational today.

Rush blistered a legitimate 5k course while dropping an eye-popping early season time of 16:37. Interesting the 16:37 is the exact time Rush ran at the state meet one year ago where he finished 3rd.

That's interesting. 

Keep any eye on this Custer team...Max Osterling finished 5th (17:30) and Nathaniel Youngblood was 11th in 18:27...That's 3/4 of a really interesting start for Custer. 

Rush crushed the field, pulling away from 2nd place-runner, Daniel Velazquez of Rapid City Stevens who ran 17:19.25.

Here are the top-15 from today's race in Douglas...Kernit Grimshaw photos coming.

1st - Joe Rush 12 Custer High School 16:37.59

2 Daniel Velazquez 12 Rapid City Stevens High School 17:19.75 2

3rd -Liam Vidas 10 Rapid City Stevens High School 17:20.97 3

4 Lucas Steiger-olson 10 Rapid City Stevens High School 17:25.63 4

5 Max Osterling 12 Custer High School 17:30.38 5

6 Luke Meyer 11 Rapid City Stevens High School 17:38.55 6

7 Jackson Wilson 11 Douglas High School 17:47.20 7

8 Anders Enevoldsen 12 Rapid City Stevens High School 17:51.40 8

9 Ben Wahlstrom 12 Custer High School 18:11.24 9

10 Garrett Rolph 12 Harding County High School 18:16.31 --

11 Nathaniel Youngblood 11 Custer High School 18:27.06 10

12 Ethan Brenneman 11 Sturgis Brown High School 18:29.60 --

13 Jacob Wike 10 Todd County High School 18:30.97 11

14 Andrew Miller 12 Bowman County 18:32.89 --

15 Jay Dykstra 12 Rapid City Stevens High School 18:33.53 12