In a close and hotly contested race, the Ballard girls cross country team finished fourth in a field of nine teams at the Fort Worden Invitational on Saturday.

Lake Stevens won the girls competition with a team score of 77 points, followed by La Center at 82, then Kingston at 86, followed by the Beavers at 86 points (Kingston finished third over Ballard on a sixth position tiebreaker).

Senior Erin Philbeck led the way for the Beavers with her seventh-place finish over the three mile course, running 18:41.

Junior Natalie White placed 10th overall in a time of 19:00, while junior Erle Lima was 14th in 19:27.

Junior Hannah Murphy was 19th in 20:04, and sophomore Alyson Fromm closed out the scoring in 43rd place in 21:03.

In the boys' race, senior Aaron Hamilton led the Beavers to a third place team finish, as he placed sixth in a time of 15:42.

Lake Stevens won the boys' team title with 34 points, followed by Liberty of Issaquah at 57, then Ballard at 97 points.

Following Hamilton were junior Blair Scott in 15th in 16:08, sophomore Jason Mills in 22nd at 16:30, sophomore Garret Wirta in 26th at 16:31, and freshman Ryan Kelly in 28th at 16:34.

For the second straight meet, Ballard ran without its number-one runner, sophomore Alex Bowns.

Ballard finishes the regular season Oct. 14 at the Seattle All-City meet against fellow KingCo rivals Roosevelt and Garfield.