MBA JS XC: Mac and Me or E.T.?

It's no mystery that most UFO sightings happen in rural areas, and Williamson "Billy Pilgrim" County let its rural roots grow out today at Poplar Grove Middle School. The campus, which is bigger on the inside, actually serves three different schools. It did not, however, serve as a readily comprehensible cross country course. With eyes wide as we wound our way through the parking lot on the bus, everyone wondered just exactly where this course would take us. Orange paint, flags, and cones shone out from every conceivable corner along with a generous helping of caution tape. Possibly sensing our confusion, the gracious hosts kindly reassured us that, should the copious course markings fail us, a phalanx of volunteers stood ready to redirect runners veering astray. So. They. Thought. The tight first few turns of the race churned up some sort of summoning crop circle of dust that drew aliens right into the race with us. As the violently electric yellow uniforms of Poplar Grove cranked out a few hundred additional lumens, chaos ensued. Wyatt Selph, who had rocketed out to the front of the pack, narrowly dodged abduction, but only by running off course. The alien forces had stunned the volunteers and even the steady Señor Paolicchi into a trance. They were powerless to help. Some runners followed Wyatt, but others, who possibly wanted to be abducted(?), took yet another path. One of the many paths opened to the runners was at least 1/4 mile shorter than the intended 2-mile course. Spacetime had become a mere toy. With extraterrestrial forces at work, finishing times and places would be as far off as Tralfamadore. Normally a top finisher in alien-free zones, Carl King, who appeared to be dealing with a debilitating abdominal cramp, was actually fighting a valiant battle to keep a larval alien from bursting forth from his midsection. (He won that battle.) A runner from Grace Christian Academy found a wormhole in the course and also found himself finishing in 1st place with an otherworldly time in the 10:30s. Sebastian "Smoking Man" Muller nonchalantly floated right through the extraterrestrial mess for 2nd place. Eluding the tractor beams and rerunning a portion of the course in the process, Wyatt Selph still managed a 4th place finish. Tucker Robbins seemed to delight in the whole scene as he hovered across the line in 5th. William King opened a stargate to claim 6th, and Ethan Taber strategically placed himself in the blessed lucky number 7 position to fend off the fiendish foes and close out our scoring top five. Wending their various ways to the finish, the Big Red claimed 7 of the top 10 spots. Not even Scully and Mulder could uncover what really happened today, but a team score of 24 secured the victory for the Big Red.