Cross Country Rode an Emotional Rollercoaster

Recently the high school girls team won their first meet title in decades and now they just won their second in a row at the Eddyville cross country meet.

What was the emotional rollercoaster all about you may ask? Well, Albia was announced the meet champions. Upon further review/ investigation/ known fact, it turned out that they had omitted one of the scoring runners from the Bravettes line up. After a little delay, the team was able to celebrate with another well-earned trophy and individual medals.

It was a perfect day for a cross country meet, sunny, slight breeze, and upper 70s/ low 80s. The junior high runners started it off and 8th graders Carter McKee and Jack Erselius were top 10 finishers. The junior high girls and boys have really been getting the hang of racing and continue to make improvements each race.

High school girls had three top 10 finishers: Elise Boulton (2), MJ Johannes (6), and Mia Boulton (8). A good handful of the team also ran their lifetime best on the course. Some being by about a minute: junior, Carmen Klos and sophomore, Haley VanDerHart.

Varsity girls were missing one of their typical scorers: sophomore, Beka Teumer, due to illness. The team had individuals step up into their roles to fill out the squad and continue to tighten their spread from the first to the fifth runner (top 5 score, 6 & 7 break ties). The growth and improvement of this group of girls has been exciting to witness so far this season.

Varsity boys also have continued to get better each race and find new things to work on and improve with their race strategies and competitive mentality. Juniors, Brydon Henning and Brayden Stockman had exciting end-of-race finishing kicks. Three of the four boys even ended up with lifetime bests at Eddyville.