UP AND RUNNING

For starters, this year both of our cross-country teams have a lot of new runners. These runners bring a lot of enthusiasm, but don't have the experience of more veteran players. This means that these coaches will have to work with their teams a little bit extra in order to prepare them for their first meet on August 28th and ensure that their performance stays consistent.

“One thing that needs to be improved is the teams’ consistency,” said Coach Andy Kaltenbach.

This season the team's main goal is to qualify for states, and the coaches believe that if the teams continue on doing as well as they are now, then they will be able to achieve that with no problem.

“This year I hope my teammates work together and push through the challenges we face throughout the season to make it to states.” said Liz Corrigan, 10.

But nobody is really worried about team cohesion- these teams tend to always get along very well, and grow to be a close-knit group, making working together as a team simple.

Since our whole county is ridiculously good at distance running, our teams are up to some tough competition. After Satellite High School made it to state finals last season, they are said to be our hardest team to beat.

Though everything is going well so far, there are a few concerns for the season. With the pandemic, the coaches want to keep all of their runners in play, so they hope to keep their teams healthy so they can continue on with the season with as few quarantines and positive cases as possible. The coaches also want the runners to enjoy the sport, so they make sure that everyone is having fun. They mainly just want to keep everyone happy and healthy.

Since there are currently no mandated COVID precautions as of now for cross-country, the runners do try their best to be as careful as possible. Since the teams are outside very often, they do not have much to worry about when they aren’t wearing masks since there is air flow and they are able to socially distance easily. Also, since they are such a small group, they are able to spread out indoors as well.

With great coaches and committed runners, our cross-country teams will strive. They are looking forward to a great season.