VASHON ISLAND — At the end of North Kitsap’s cross country season, Viking coach Lee Hodin hopes to look back on last weekend’s Vashon Island Invitational at Paradise Ridge and see the turning point in the purple season.

He has already seen a shift in practice and race mentality among his runners.

“I think all of sudden it’s a little different,” Hodin said. “Not so much of saying ‘Hey, let’s just run and have fun.’ Their sights are set a bit higher and now whatever we need to be doing, they are right there.”

This past weekend on Vashon Island, the NK team hit its stride on the forested course of Paradise Ridge as the varsity boys and girls squads each took home first place wins along with the boys JV, which started the meet out with a champion’s finish.

Beginning the meet with the momentum of a rolling boulder, the JV boys finished 10 runners in its division’s top 13 places, taking first place over Peninsula and Central Kitsap. NK sophomore Max Tomlinson and senior David Dobson led the field for the Vikes with second and third place, respectively.

When the varsities hit the course next, North’s engine revved.

“What we were trying to do was to have them run with a lot of confidence and pride,” Hodin said of NK’s goal for the meet against mostly 3A opponents. “They certainly stepped it up.”

“I just wanted to go out and doing something new, something that I hadn’t done before,” senior Cody Bradwell said of his pre-race thoughts.

Mission accomplished in both regards as Bradwell took to the hilly 3-mile course and refreshed it with a new record time. Bradwell’s 17:19 finish shattered the course record of 18:07, set last year by Abdi Giire of Foster — who, incidentally, finished second in this year’s meet.

“About middle of my race I realized I had the potential to make a move and do something,” Bradwell said. “After I took the lead, in the back of my head I kept thinking, ‘Can’t make a mistake, that guy is right on my tail.’ Then the rest of the race I was running scared, it was a new experience for me.”

The inspirational fear drove Bradwell to lead the Viking men with the first place finish, as Nick Cameron (fifth), Ray Reedy (seventh) and Paul Coulter (ninth) rounded out North’s top 10 finishers.

In the girls’ race, North picked up a one-two finish as junior Jennifer Gregg raced to second place and sophomore Ruby Roberts captured first, two seconds away from grabbing the girls’ course record, with a time of 20:55.

“I didn’t know how (Roberts) would handle taking the lead,” Hodin said of the sophomore, who was racing in her second meet as a Viking. “But she handled it just fine.”

Erica Warkus followed Gregg’s and Roberts’ lead as she came in sixth while freshman Hilary Leonard and NK’s athlete of the meet Renee Hommel also stepped up to help the girls out to first place over Shorewood. With the win, the girls remain the team to watch on the state’s top 10 team coaches’ poll.

Now, the Vikings will travel into the ranks of some of the top teams in the state when they travel to Olympia to take on the Bears, the Gig Harbor Tides, the Capital Cougars and the Lincoln Abes today. In three days, they’ll travel to Yakima

“This is where we see what they got,” coach Hodin said.

“Coach has expectations for us, and we have even higher expectations for ourselves,” Bradwell said. “All of us are starting to realize the potential we have if we just keep working.”