Recently overcoming a tough loss of Coach Wooldridge, the cross country team still pushes on. Matthew Starkey once said to me, “[Coach Wooldridge] was the reason why I fell in love with running.” Going through this season will definitely be tough on the team. Cross is one of Fredericktown’s newest sports, and it is already very successful. The runners are constantly training in season and off to reach the goals set by themselves and the coaches. One thing about cross is there are no home meets; this makes it very hard to support them throughout their season. Be sure to check their schedule to see if you can make it to come support!

Here’s a recap from their last meet in Arcadia Valley: The Blackcats Cross Country team travelled to Arcadia Valley Saturday to compete in an invitational with 30 teams.  Runners competed in both JV and Varsity divisions for boys and girls.  First to race were the JV boys Matthew Starkey, Elijah Rogers, Andrew Schnable, Andrew Starkey, Caleb Jenkerson, Isaac Pirtle, Garrett Marler, and Krystian Dennison. The JV boys finished in 6th place and had 3 boys finish in the top 20. Next came the JV girls Belle Hanshew and Patience Garland. Varsity boys Noah Jenkerson, Johnnie Hurst, Dwayne Kemper and Lyndan Gruenke ran next with Gruenke finishing in 15th place. The last race of the day was Varsity girls Kristen Mungle and Ava Laut.  Overall the team had a great day, as every single runner set a personal course record for this meet.

Medalists for the day were Andrew Starkey, Matthew Starkey, Lyndan Gruenke and Elijah Rogers. This week’s Blackcat of the Meet awards go to Matthew Starkey and Elijah Rogers. Matthew improved his personal course time by almost 4 minutes and Elijah medalled in his first meet of the season. (Credit: Coach Garrity)

The next meet is on September 21st in Cape Central. The following are the scheduled meets for the season:

September:

21st Cape Central

24th Oak Ridge

October:
5th Cape Notre Dame

12th Potosi

19th Farmington

26th Dexter

November:

2nd Districts (Location TBA)

9th State Meet (Location TBA)