Cross Country Faces Loss at District Meet

The cross country seniors pose for a photo.

Linette Page '19

The cross country seniors pose for a photo.

The cross country team concluded their season with the district meet held at Old Settlers Park on Thursday, Oct. 20. Both JV and varsity teams ran the 5K, though none of the Warriors were able to qualify for the regional meet.

As usual, the meet began with the varsity girls’ and boys’ teams. Zach Shrull ‘19 placed 28th in his division, with an impressive time of 18:00.10 minutes. Running a time of 18:46.40, Jason Siegel ‘16 landed in 35th place. Varsity girl Linette Page ‘19 clocked it in at 22:39.90, earning 31st place. Christy French ‘19 followed with a time of 23:11.60 to receive 35th place.

JV runners ran their event shortly after the varsity 5K finished, with Skylar Cupit ‘18 running a time of 19:50.50, placing 18th out of the 89 athletes in his division. Following close behind was Sam Helwig ‘19 with 20:07.60, landing himself in 21st place. Delaney Brown ‘18 placed 27th in the JV girls’ division, finishing with a time of 25:19.00. Clocking in a time of 26:15.10, Veda Allen ‘19 placed 31st.

The new course proved to be an obstacle for many runners, who were unfamiliar with the route and were unable to pace themselves throughout.

“Westwood, especially since our district is extremely stacked and we have lots of really strong players, running wise we really didn’t do too well, and along with that the course was new, so no one really knew how to run and how to pace ourselves,” Page said.

Though the season has ended, athletes are already setting goals for next year.

“I thought our team worked really hard and did our absolute best, but it’s the last meet and everyone really pulled through,” Brown said. “I hope in the future we can have more drilled running, more intensive workouts in practice so we’re going our top fastest speed we can accomplish.”

Despite facing a loss at districts, many athletes had a successful season and were able to set new personal bests at previous meets and enjoy the company of their teammates.