The cross country state meet was held on Saturday, Oct. 21 here at the Sheridan VA medical center. The day was unlike those that had taken place in the years before for the same state meet. In previous years it was bright and sunny with warm weather but this year it was quite the opposite. The sky was blue with a few clouds but the air was icy and the trees were bending with the wind.

  Running in the wind was hard for many as one stretch of the race was up a hill and straight into the wind which was followed by another stretch up another incline with the freezing wind blowing across the runners. By the end of the meet the boys had ended up in seventh place and the girls taking sixth. Brian Gonada was the lead runner for Sheridan and took ninth with a time of 16:48.65 while Trinity Preston took eighteenth for the girls by running the course in 20:16.40. After the meet assistant coach Isaac VanDyke said “I thought the kids gave it their all and thought they worked really hard. I’m proud of them and they’re an awesome group to work with.”

  The cross country season started during the summer on Aug. 14. To start off the season, the team took a trip up to the mountains for three days and two nights to train at higher altitude. This is a tradition that the team does every year to do team building as well as to train for the season. Besides training during season the coaches, Art Bauers and VanDyke, met at kendrick park during the summer for those who wanted to train for the season before the official start.

  For practices, cross country runners will run anywhere from five to ten miles a day to train for their meets. When talking about practices and training junior Garett Avery said, “We try to stay together and train together so when we run we can stay together and finish as team.” Over the course of a season, the athletes could run up to 400 miles from practice alone.

  Both the girls and boys cross country teams took third place at regionals in Cheyenne, Wyo. At regionals, the top runners for Sheridan were Trinity Preston, taking eleventh place and Brian Gonda, taking fifth with both meets out of forty four.  

  With the season now over, the team is reflecting back on their goals for the season and how they tried to achieve them as well as what they can do to place better in the future.