On a sweltering hot morning, Cross Country faced fast and strong competition at the Belton meet on Thursday, Sept. 18. Although the team faced tough opponents, many runners pulled through with some achieving personal records, portraying their grit and determination on the course.

With a costly delayed start because of late buses, the race began 30 minutes later than expected. While this gave the runners extra time to warm up, however,  it did the same to the temperatures. Shortly after Varsity Girls began their race, the heat quickly picked up making a rather warm race for everyone else. 

“Although it was a little hotter than usual, it was still a super fun course even though it wasn’t my best run,” John Magdaleno ‘28 said.

 Going into the meet, Westwood lost their two best runners due to them competing in an invite only meet at McNeil. This allowed Scott Engle ‘28 a chance to run Varsity for the second time of the year. Being fueled by adrenaline and grit, he ended up with a personal record of blank beating his time he made a week prior.

“Being able to run in varsity again was super fun and I was very happy to beat the PR I made last week,” Scott Engle ‘28 said.

Both varsity and JV had a very successful meet with multiple individuals placing in the top 20 of their category. Jonah Katzowitz ‘28 and Tyler Navarro ‘28 improved their personal records by carrying out exceptional races. Katzowitz placed 12th overall in Varsity and Navarro made a speedy recovery following surgery, beating his previous personal record by just under a minute and a half.

“It’s been great being able to finally come to meets again,” Navarro said. “I even got a new personal record that was a minute faster than my last one since getting back.”

The Cross Country Warriors will bring their resilience to their next meet on Saturday, Sept. 27th.