By John RittenhouseThe Luverne cross country teams opened the 2004 season by competing Friday in the Sioux Falls O’Gorman Invitational at Spencer Park in Sioux Falls.Luverne fielded complete boys’ and girls’ varsity squads for the meet, and ran incomplete teams for the junior varsity races.The Cardinal girls placed third in varsity team competition by scoring 69 points. LHS topped Aberdeen Central (89 points) and Brandon Valley (110) in the final standings. Yankton and O’Gorman tallied 20 and 58 points respectively to lead the field.The race was limited to 3,200 meters, since it was the first meet of the season for all teams involved.Lexi Heitkamp led LHS by placing fifth with a time of 12:48.Amanda Saum (ninth in 13:16), Kayla Raddle (11th in 13:19), Amanda Kannas (20th in 14:01) and Kelsey Dooyema (27th in 14:21) made contributions to Luverne’s team effort. Kristy Heikes placed 30th in 15:04 without influencing the scoring.The Cardinal boys finished fourth in team competition by tallying 100 points. Yankton (17), O’Gorman (74) and AC (77) led the field. BV (106) and Sioux Falls Christian (156) placed fifth and sixth respectively.Tom Ward led the Cards in the 4,000-meter varsity race by placing 16th in 13:52.Thomas Pinkal (18th in 13:59), Dusty Antoine (19th in 14:04), Steve Schneiderman (24th in 14:18) and Travis Halfmann (28th in 14:54) padded the team point total. David Nelson (43rd in 16:10) and Michael Nelson (44th in 16:42) also ran in the varsity race for LHS."There was good competition at this meet," said Cardinal coach Bruce Gluf. "Yankton is unbelieveable. They are loaded on both the boys’ and girls’ side. We ran a little tentative. It seemed like the kids had a lot left at the end of the races. But, it was our first meet, and we will go on from here."Grant Oldre (23rd in 13:43), Davonte Maine (19th in 14:22 and Eric Kraetsch (32nd in 14:26) ran in the 3,200-meter boys’ junior varsity race.Rachel Saum (25th in 12:19), Christy Van Dyke (26th in 13:31), Whitney Oehlerts (27th in 13:37) and Ashley Kraetsch (28th in 14:57) competed in the girls’ junior varsity run.The Luverne teams will run at the Adrian Invitational Tuesday.