RACHEL — A week ago at the first North Central Athletic Conference weekly cross country meet this season, North Marion’s Zach Tennant got off to a slow start and paid for it.

The junior had to work especially hard just to earn a 15th place finish at Morgantown’s Mylan Park. But then heat exhaustion set in, and Tennant passed out as a result.

“I knew it was about as hot today, so I wanted to try something different,” he said Wednesday as North Marion hosted the second weekly conference meet.

What Tennant decided to do was make an early break away from the leading pack, which he did, and successfully held off his rivals who got the best of him a week earlier.

“I just took off with no remorse,” he said. “I just wanted to get out there.”

Tennant got out in front of last week’s winner Alex Zurbuch of Elkins and easily held him off to earn his first-ever meet victory. He finished in a time of 17:17, which was 18 seconds quicker than Zurbuch in second (17:35).

“I just wanted to go out strong and see how my fitness stayed up because the past couple of days I wasn’t able to do much at all,” Tennant said. “I was just going to go out there and try to win it and see what happens. That’s what I did and held on for my life.”

But this is the race Tennant really wanted to win since it was on his home course.

And he made sure to let his coach know exactly that.

“He actually told me beforehand that he was going to win this race. So afterward I said, ‘Well, you lived up to your expectations,’” North Marion head coach Larry Mason said. “I think being on his home course with local kids and the home crowd, that really had him pumped up. So that made a big, big difference.”

University High swept the team battle as both the boys’ and girls’ teams took first for the second week in a row.

In the boys’ standings, UHS placed five runners in the top 10 en route to 32 points followed by West Fairmont in second (83), Elkins third (99), Morgantown fourth (112), Preston fifth (119), North Marion sixth (122), East Fairmont seventh (159) and Buckhannon eighth (161).

The Polar Bears, who finished a distant second, had two runners in the top 10 as James Haldeman took sixth (18:12) and David Ciarolla ninth (18:17). Also, Dayton McVicker was 20th (19:01), Joseph Vozniak 21st (19:02) and Patrick Stanton 27th (19:20) rounding out West’s scoring runners.

“Obviously, this wasn’t one of our best performances. We have a lot of room to improve,” West head coach Chris Neptune said. “Hopefully, this will make the guys want to work harder and get better as we progress through the season.”

After Tennant’s strong performance, the Huskies had Garrett Glover finish 14th (18:40), Jeremy Gouzd 22nd (19:06), Neil Bland 40th (20:22) and Kenny Burnley 44th (21:53) in their top five.

For East Fairmont, Trey Stoller was 16th (18:49) followed by Michael Ebbert in 24th (19:15), Hunter Wood 35th (19:55), Travis Alkire 38th (20:15) and Ross Ramage 46th (22:34).

Allison Pettit of Morgantown won the girls’ race in a time of 20:07, but the Mohigans (50) were still edged out by their rival Hawks (40).

North Marion placed third (100), Elkins fourth (101), West Fairmont fifth (122), Preston sixth (129) and East Fairmont seventh (189) as Buckhannon did not field a full team.

Jordan McDonald and Jessica Parsons paced the Huskies in 12th (22:20) and 13th (22:24), respectively. Sarah Ray took 21st (23:21), Mariah Hamilton 28th (24:43) and Samantha Cross 31st (25:24).

“Our girls are coming along. So we have a lot of new kids, and we’re trying to bring them along slowly,” Mason said. “And with their finish today, it seems to be that they are on track to do very well.”

West sophomore Chelsea Clark was Marion County’s top finisher in ninth (21:36). Elizabeth Hendrixson came in 22nd (24:00), Alyssa Ruberto 26th (24:31), Tori Hawkins 35th (26:57) and Averi Hansen 37th (27:08).

For the Bees, who is without their top runner and lost one during the race, Megan Wilson led the way in 30th (25:21) followed by Stormee Satterfield in 39th (27:50), Rebecca Haught 40th (28:27) and Brooke Morris 44th (29:42).

However, the day belonged to Tennant in his own backyard.

And this came from a junior who had his doubts about being a cross country runner after placing fifth in the 3,200 and sixth in the 1,600 at the Class AAA state track meet this past spring.

“After that first meet, I started questioning one of my coaches if I was even a good cross country runner. I was starting to think I was only a track runner,” said Tennant, who placed 24th at the state cross country meet last year. “This is a definitely confidence boost. This is a big eye-opener for me.”

E-mail Andrew Manzo at dmanzo@timeswv.com.