JACKSONVILLE – Orange Park High senior cross country runner John Bear stayed with the front pack and wound up in a 15 second pack of top five finishers at the University of North Florida Cross Country Invitational held Saturday.

Bear, a recent winner of the Bob Hans XC Invite two weeks ago t Ridgeview High School, finished in 16 minutes, 19.6 seconds to take fourth behind a top four group led bhy Aidan O’Gorman of New Smyrna Beach who won in 16:04.7. Behind O’Gorman was John Sorenson of Fernandina Beach in 16:05.5 and Stanton’s Sebastian Kenne in 16:15.1.

Also finish in under 17 minutes as Fleming Island High sophomore Kameron Wallizada who finished sixth in 16:46.6 despite losing his timing chip and stopping to retrieve it.

Oakleaf High’s Dylan Nelson finished ninth at 17:00.4 to finish in the top 10 wiht Rockledge’s Troy Smith 10th in 17:06.2.

In team points, Fleming Island finished a strong second to Creekside with 99 points behind the Knights’ 60 points for the win. Fernandina Beach finished third with 107 points. Orange Park took ninth with Ridgeview 10th.

Fleming Island’s strong second place finish was bolstered by top 20 finishes from Will Livesay’s 14th place in 17:16.3 and Gage West’s 18th in 17:29.4.

Ridgeview’s top finisher was senior Joel Nesi who clocked an 18:04.5 for 39th place.

For Fleming Island, Jayden Scherer finished 34th in 17:58; Nic Hoelscher finished 40th in 18:05.4, Owen Darfler finished 45th in 18:10.8, John Brinkman finished 46th in 18:12.7 and Ethan Heagle finished 50th in 18:21.5 to complete the top seven scorers for the Golden Eagles.

For Orange Park, ninth ahead of Ridgeview, Steven Aris topped twin brother Stevenson Aris by less than a second for a 41st and 42nd finish in 18:05.9 and 18:06.5, respectively.

Ridgeview had Keith Kelley in at 55th in 18:26.7.

Oakleaf finished 14th in team points.

In the girls race, Oakleaf took 12th with Madeline Dahlman at 36th in 22:34.3 with Ridgeview 16th with Anna Magruder 32nd in 22:12.3.

In Friday’s collegiate race, also a 5K race, former Keystone Heights High standout Enoch Nadler, now 31 and an Olympics Marathon Trials qualifier, won convincingly in 15:06 over a fast field of collegiates from UNF, University of Florida and Bethune-Cookman University. Nadler runs for the Florida Track Club Elite Team out of Gainesville where he coaches track and cross country.