Springs Valley Community High School

The varsity cross country season kicked off at the 15th annual Forest Park Running Ranger Invitational on Thursday. The boys finished a strong 3rd out of 10 teams while the girls, who did not have enough runners to compete as a team, found many positives along the way. Coach Freeman told the kids at the outset that after all the preseason practices that today is racing. He challenged the kids to push themselves hard enough to see what is on the other side of the mental and physical challenges that every runner goes through. He said, “Greatness lies on the other side of that pain, the excuses and the lack of desire.” The weather was perfect for this first meet which in the past years has been traditionally very hot. Overcast skies and 70’s degree temperature provided an excellent setting. The boys race had 10 teams represented and 76 runners overall. The top 3 of Grant Brown, Alan Marshall and Carson Brown ran together early, settling at 6th, 7th and 8th places in the first mile. Grant steadily began his attack at the leaders, eventually landing in 2nd place for the meet at 17:05 which was 14 seconds behind the winner. Alan found the second mile a bit challenging but held on for 12th in 18:12. Carson was consistent throughout and crossed the line 2nd for the team, 7th overall in 17:40. In fact Carson’s run was his second best career run just behind his 17:29 run at the Jasper Sectional in 2022. Finishing in 4th for the team and 16th overall was Andre Ayres in an impressive 18:27 in his very first cross country race. Freshman Dane Harris had a nice XC debut finishing 5th for the team and 36th overall. Keaton Thacker set a new PR by running the course in 25:29 and breaking his previous best from last season by nearly 4 minutes. Castle won the meet with 41 points, Jasper was 2nd with 48 and the Hawks weren’t far behind with 65. In the girls race 3 familiar faces were at the start line for Valley. Running together since their junior high XC days, juniors Sophie Harris, Keira Lynch and Jadyn Lynch got the 2023 started. Sophie led the way with a PR run of 23:07.5 and 12th overall. Her time moves her to #6 on the all-time best individual xc performers list. Sophie was strong and steady throughout the race. She improved from last year’s run on the same course by over 4 minutes and by 9 minutes from her 2021 run. Jadyn Lynch beat last year’s course time by over 2:30 minutes with a 27:05 and 37th place. Her sister Keira was right behind in 38th and 27:09. The girls will line up 2 more soon with senior Macie Mayhew working hard to get her practices in and freshman Addi Moffatt juggling both volleyball and cross country this fall season. Coach Freeman told the kids after the meet it was a great start to the season. “Today, we learned a little about ourselves and about racing”, he said. There were individual accomplishments today and the kids will continue to learn and grow stronger throughout the season. All the results from the meet can be viewed at: https://bit.ly/48qzur6 Next up for the Hawks is the Bloomfield Invitational on Saturday morning beginning at 9am. This will be the first time competing in the Bloomfield Invitational as the teams have usually traveled to Shelbyville for the Jeremy Wright small schools meet during this weekend. Coach Freeman sees the benefits of a shorter bus ride and competing against competition that they will face come tournament time. The Junior High team kicks off their season at this meet. There will be 10 junior high teams competing and seven high schools in all.