MISSOULA -- Make it three in a row for Jon Metropoulos.

The Helena High junior captured his third straight cross country meet win, doing so Saturday at the Mountain West Invitational, one of the largest meets in the region.

The state meet will be run on the same course at the University of Montana golf course in three weeks.

Metropoulos finished in 15 minutes, 26.53 seconds. TJ Strange Owl of Colstrip was second in 15:31.35. Helena easily topped second-place Bozeman in the team standings 94-144.

Helena High boys coach Kelly Gilbert said Metropoulos is distancing himself from the rest of the top runners in Class AA.

He was 27 seconds ahead of John Ricardi of Bozeman.

Gilbert also was pleased with the performance of Joe Wirtz. Wirtz, who was ill most of the previous week, finished 13th.

"We just had good week of practice," Gilbert said. "We were well prepared and the kids grouped together today."

The Helena girls finished 10th and were bolstered by an eighth-place result from Alyssa Bossler in 19:01.2. Amanda Towle was the next Bengals runner, coming in 50th.

There were 253 finishers in the girls' race and 41 teams from three states participating.

"I was very pleased with the way (Bossler) ran," Helena girls coach Gigi Moy said. "There's so many people in that race, sometimes it's hard to see where you are on the race course."

Capital's girls squad finished fifth, helped by top-20 finishes from Kristin Parker (16th, 19:13.27) and Mandi Jourdonnais (18th, 19:14.48).

"Both of them ran well. Mandi had a season best I'm sure," Capital girls coach Tracy Logan said. "I'm really pleased with the depth of our team."

The Capital boys finished seventh, led by David Sheridan in 18th place (16:11.05).

"David Sheridan had another strong race. We ran well from what I can tell in the race," said Capital boys coach Ed Darfler, referring to a technical problem that jumbled the majority of the boys' race results.

Darfler said the boys' field approached 300 runners from 45 schools.

Townsend competed in the meet. Jake Duede led the Bulldog boys with a time of 17:21 and Whitney Sjostrom was the top Townsend girl with a time of 20:41.