krobinett@journalnet.com

POCATELLO - As soon as Taylor Bean crossed the finish line at the Bob Conley Invitational cross country meet on Saturday, he looked for a jacket.

Even though the Burley senior just got done winning the prestigious race with a time of 17 minutes, 27.28 seconds, there was no time to celebrate. Not while snow was pouring down and the cold wind was hitting his face, anyway.

"I've never run in snow before, and I've been doing this for six years" he said. "It's so cold out here."

Bean didn't even get the worst of it.

For the boys' varsity race, the snow died down and the sun even peeked out from behind the clouds for some of the final runners. But for the girls' varsity race, it was tough to even see.

Blizzard-like conditions faced the leaders as they approached the final stages of the race, and contestants were looking for cover instead of a jacket.

That made Liz Branon's run of 19:05.89 so amazing. The Eagle junior took an early lead and never surrendered it. She blazed past the field and won by more than a minute over Highland's Alex Litzsinger, who finished second with a time of 20:06.29.

Litzsinger, though, said placing that high in poor conditions was nothing to complain about.

"The hardest part of the race was running into the snow," she said. "Not only is it colder, but you can't see anything."

Highland cross country coach Chris Belcher said Litzsinger did a tremendous job. But, to him, seeing Litzsinger place is nothing new.

"She's doing really well this year," he said. "She's starting to get recruited by some pretty big college teams. She got a handwritten letter from Gonzaga's coach the other day."

Belcher was also pleased with how his girls' team did on the day, finishing third. Eagle, behind Brandon's dominating run, won the team title and Soda Springs came in second.

On the boys' side, Highland took the title behind the strong running of Dallin Farnsworth, who finished third overall with a time of 17:29.81.

That wasn't good enough to overtake two Burley runners, though. After Bean finished first, his teammate David Fillmore came in right behind him.

"That was fun," Bean said. "Me and David spend a lot of time together, work hard in practice and push each other to get better every day."

Still, most runners thought the biggest accomplishment on this day was simply making it through the race.

"In these conditions," Bean said, "just about any time looks good."