Men’s cross country team planning to compete in two national events

The men’s cross country team will be heading to postseason racing after they finished fifth at State on Oct. 28. 

Junior Luke Hartman led the Tigers through the mat at the state championship at Lake Municipal Park. He finished 16th overall, one spot away from the podium. Freshman Jaden Merrick crossed the mat close behind him, in 18th place. The team was one point away from placing fourth. The team will be losing four of its varsity runners. 

The competition is not over for the team, however, as it plans to participate in a number of national events. The Tigers have participated in postseason events before, but not in the past five or six years. This year they will be attending two races, the Nike Heartland meet which is paid for by the school’s parent account, and the Runninglane Xc nationals, which the athletes and their families will have to pay for, since it is not a school event. 

The first race in their postseason will be on Sunday, Nov. 13 in Sioux Falls, S.D., at Yankton park. The men’s team is in the open invitational 5 and will be running at 11:35 a.m. The boys will be making the trip down Saturday morning and staying in a hotel overnight. 

“I’m very excited for the postseason racing,” senior Colby Cryer said. “It will be a great chance to try for some late season PR’s, and my ultimate goal is to break 16 minutes in the 5k at Nationals, and maybe Regionals.”

After Sioux Falls, the team will be heading to Huntsville, Ala., to compete at the RunningLane National Championship meet, which will be held on Saturday, Dec. 3. 

Last year, freshman Jaden Merrick attended the meet where he ran a time of 15:34. The varsity team will be attending the meet as a team and will be competing toward the top.
These two events will be a chance for the Tigers cross country team to compete with some of the best teams from other states. There are over 800 kids and 80 teams signed up for Nationals, and over 200 teams signed up for Regionals. This will allow the opportunity for the team to compete with runners they have never run against and to meet people from all over the country that have similar interests.

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.