Cross Country Finishes Season at Regionals

After a long season of racing, Cross Country ended their season last week with Regional’s at Lincoln Park in Grand Junction. Teams from all over the Western Slope gathered on Thursday, October 20th. Our team has been working hard all season and they got to show it off and go all out at this final race.

The boys were up on the line first, tensions were extremely high as runners visualized their upcoming race. The gun went off and the race began, the runners were packed together for the first few hundred meters. Behind all the chaos however, Zenon Reece slowly made his way to the front of the pack. He was followed by Keegan Seymour, Quintin Motter, and Dawson Davis. It was a hot day to race but the team persevered. Zenon came in as the 1st finisher for Palisade, placing 21st overall with a time of 16:41. He was followed by (in order), Quintin Motter, Keegan Seymour, Dawson David, Dakota Hatcher, Brady Russel, Will Neese, and Connor Moseley. Almost everyone on the Boys team PR’d at this meet, which is huge for each one of these boys!

The girls were up next, who were led by the up-and coming-Freshmen of the season, Aspen Johnson and Amy Talbott. On the opposite side of the spectrum, this was the last race of their High School careers for Jessica Mosby and Kenzie Rewold. The girls had also worked extremely hard this season and it showed, with most of the girls once again PR’ing and Aspen Johnson placing 27th with a time of 20:46. Amy Talbott, Brielle Sorenson, Jessica Mosby, Sophia Dery, Miranda Pike, Kenzie Rewold, and Ema Babnic all finished the season extremely strong.

I spoke with Brady Russel, a Junior who has been running Cross Country since his Freshman year. When asked how he felt about his performance at Regionals. “I feel like I did really good, I mean I PR’d 4 weeks in a row.” He also said, “I’m trying not to think about it” when I asked him how he feels about only having one season left of XC.

The Cross Country team has put in a lot of work over the past few months and it was amazing to get to see them show it off. Although much of the team will miss the seniors departing this season, they look ahead to many more great seasons.