On Friday, Nov. 4, the cross country team headed to Jefferson City to scout out the State cross country course, held at Oak Hills Golf Course to get one last practice in before the races on Saturday. On Saturday, they started racing off in the morning with the 3 and 4A schools. Then they moved to the class 1 and 2A races.
The 2A girls race got started at 11:10. They did have to restart the race once due to someone falling down in the first 100 meters. So the race actually got started, a short time later. The El Dorado Springs girls team got out right where they needed to be. When the race was over, Ashley Knoll found a finish of 12th place, which gave her all-state honors. Last year she got edged out shortly before the finish line to end up placing 26th with the top 25 runners being all-state. So this year, junior, Ashley Knoll was able to avenge last years bitter finish. As a team, they didn’t know what to expect, as Ashley was the only girl to have experience in the state race. The girls team went in seeded 14th and came out with in 11th place finish as a team, just 24 points out of 7th. The other girls, senior Michaela Trotter, junior Emily Ring, sophomores Abby Cartwright and Sarah King, along with freshman Emily Sutton ran well as well and handled the pressure very well. Overall, a very good day for them. Extremely proud of their efforts.
The 2A boys race got started at 12:25. Senior Tyler Goatley was the lone El Dorado Springs participant in this race. Last year he finished 15th, and this year was setting his sights on minimally a top 5 finish, with preparing himself for the possibility of winning the race. He got out at the start of the race, running the first 2 miles just as he had planned. Hitting his times and putting him right where he wanted to be heading into the 3rd mile. The 3rd mile starts with a couple of big down hills, along with several bigger uphills. A gap developed early into the 3rd mile, due to a breakdown in form on one of the uphills, creating separation between him and the top four runners. This kept him from a higher finish, however, he kept working and finally caught the 4th runner shortly before the finish. He was moving up on 2nd and 3rd but ran out of time. He ran a really good race and was pleased with the result. He ran over 40 seconds faster than he did last year. He gave himself an opportunity and that was most important. Next up for Tyler is trying to decide where he wants to go to college.
Other, area schools also finished well, as the Lamar boys team placed 1st and the Stockton boys team finished 2nd.
Now we take a little time off and start setting our sights toward track season. We wanted to give a big thank you to the Optimist Club and 9 Wonders Optimist Club as well as Kevin McCullough for all of their support and help with our trip. It was greatly appreciated.
BULLDOG CROSS COUNTRY SQUAD – Here is a team picture including coach at the state meet. (From left) Coach Goatley, Sarah King, Emily Ring, Michaela Trotter, Tyler Goatley, Ashley Knoll, Abby Cartwright, Emily Sutton and Coach Rhodes.
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