The cross country team will compete at the 6-6A district meet on Oct. 13 at North Lakes Park in Denton. The varsity girls start at 8:30 a.m and boys at 9:00 a.m.
Unlike sports such as football or baseball, cross country does not have a district tournament in which they compete round after round; they have one district meet to qualify for regionals. Last year, both the boys and girls teams finished in third place.
“[Last year] was the first time in a while that we got both teams to the regional meet,” head coach Chance Edwards said. “[This year,] we’ve done a better job of running more consistently, [since] that was something not done well in the past. We’ve [also] done a better job of paying attention and not neglecting the ‘extra things,’ [such as] the sleep and nutrition habits.”
The team’s last meet, the Jesuit XC Invitational on Sept. 30, ended with the boys finishing fourth and girls finishing seventh.
“[Since] we had a good meet [that] weekend, the kids have been very upbeat and [have shown] me nothing but motivation and positive vibes [for districts],” Edwards said. “We’ve had a few [setbacks this season, such as] one boy rolling his ankle [at] the first meet [and] injury issues here or there on the girls’ side. But, overall, we’ve held together pretty well [and] been happy with the results.”
From the district championship, the top three teams and 10 individual runners will advance to the regional meet on Oct. 24. Junior Elijiah Rivera-Campos is the top runner on the boys team, sitting as one of the fastest 5k runners in the school’s history. He said he believes he has a good chance at advancing to regionals, and hopes to be the first boy in a long time to make it to state.
“I’ll for sure qualify,” Rivera-Campos said. “[The most difficult part has been] training by myself, since I have different mileages, times and training from everyone. It’s mentally hard [to keep] my mileage consistent, [keep] the team together and [try] to lead them into success. [But] I just tell myself that I can do it.”
With both teams this year consisting predominantly of freshmen and sophomores, Edwards said it could be tough at times rebuilding the team culture. He said a younger team has a greater learning curve and there are less upperclassmen to fall back on.
“It takes time for the younger athletes to figure out what they have to do and the right way to do it,” Edwards said. “That can be trying on your patience sometimes. The teams [at district] have upperclassmen, and, [while] we have some juniors and seniors doing well, [we don’t] have a large [number] of them. That can hinder us a bit, but [the younger runners] are getting faster and coming along, [so] we will be fine.”
If the team advances to regionals, they will then compete to be within the top 20 individually or top four as a team in order to make it to state.
“It’s been a long journey for our whole team and me since the beginning of June,” Rivera-Campos said. “We’ve been building a lot of [our] team culture and teaching the underclassmen. [We’ve been] training all the way until now and we [have] to [do our thing.]”
