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Evelyn Sanchez

Both the boys’ and girls’ cross country teams opened the season this past weekend at Plainfield.

While both teams are young, the coaches came out of that meet optimistic about what the season holds.

“We finished a strong fifth out of 15 teams,” boys coach Ryan McMaster said. Our top pair was 13th (seniors Yonas Araya and junior Shewa Gared). So for our first meet and missing a top guy (junior Jesse Vargas missed the meet) I thought we ran really well, but we will look to improve as the season progresses.”

For the girls, the tandem of senior Mariah Judy and sophomore Toren Hartog finished 22nd overall in a time of 39:05.31. At the Plainfield meet, there are 65 teams of two who score points with each runner alternating miles over a one mile course.

“I’m excited for the incoming talent and the potential of our rebuilding team,” Judy said. “I am most excited to build relationships within our team and to be a part of the improvement that we have the potential to display.”

Judy is especially pleased with the youth movement on the team.

“Every year we have newcomers who finish out the season really enjoying the sport, and that’s encouraging to witness,” Judy said.

As a senior leader, Judy enjoys watching the team grow.

“The relationships we build from being together every day not only help us improve physically, but also mentally as we continually support each other in any way possible,” Judy said.

The boys also have big plans for the season.

“We have a few goals this season,” McMaster said. “First our primary goal is to qualify for semi state. It has been awhile since our whole team has qualified and we have the ability to do it this year if all the runners do their part. We have the toughest semi state in Indiana so advancing to state this year from there would be highly unlikely.

“We also are hoping at MIC to be top 4. It has been almost 10 years since a BD cc team was top 4. Again if we stay healthy and runners compete the way we know they are capable of while we entered season ranked behind some of the other MIC schools i think we can surprise a lot of teams. Finally,  we want to continue to grow the depth of our team and numbers.  The better our whole team is and more guys fighting for varsity spots the more successful as a team we can be. Guys are less complacent and bring their best and improve weekly when they are worried they might lose their varsity spot.”

Both the boys and girls run this Saturday at the Danville Invitational.