Running about every weekend, varsity boys and girls kept busy.
At Salina, varsity boys placed second and girls placed fourth. While at Salina, varsity girls had two injured runners and freshman Reagan Kaiser stepped in to run varsity. Out of the five races that day, the runners had three people win gold.
WAC at Liberal was the next race. The boys placed fourth and the girls fifth. Senior Seth Tophoj became the new WAC Champion with a time of 17:15 and seniors Eli Fort (18:18) and Bailey Zimmerman (16:25) were All-WAC.
Following the WAC meet, the team traveled to Newton for regionals. The boys placed fourth and the girls placed second. Boys missed qualifying for state as a team by eight points, and girls placed second, beating Newton by one point. Seniors Seth Tophoj and Eli Fort qualified for state. The varsity girls team also qualified for state.
State cross country was held at Rimrock. The varsity girls placed 10th out of 12th. Senior Bailey Zimmerman placed 13th. Senior Seth Tophoj placed sixth and senior Eli Fort placed 37th.
“The team accomplished so much,” senior Bailey Zimmerman said. “For as young of a team that we had, I thought we all tried so hard. The girls knew at regionals that everyone had to give it their all, and if one person didn’t, we wouldn’t have made it, but they wanted it. This was easily the best team I’ve ever had.”
