The Britton-Hecla cross country squad will kick of its fall season on Thursday at the Redfield Invitational and this Tueday the local runners will host their only home meet of the season at the Britton Country Club.
“That first meet is always an interesting one,” said B-H coach Stephanie Symens. “You are wondering if your practice is paying off and there are some nerves in the first meet, especially since we have a younger team. But I always tell the runners that if you nervous it just means that you care.”
Three runners will compete in the varsity division, three in the junior varsity bracket, and six in the middle school division. Varsity runners will include sophomores and returning letterwinners Joseph O’Brien and Livia Knecht, and junior Aiden Strong who is a newcomer to the squad. Junior varsity competitors are third-year runners Lillian Boyko and Avery Leonard, both freshmen, and eighth grader Grace Folkman, who is a first-year runner.
Sixth graders can only compete in the middle school division and those runners include Reeve Knecht, Mark Folkman, Leo Schuller, Jase Stelzer, Hezekiah O’Brien, and Tripp Hagen.
“I thought that last year we made a lot of progress,” noted Symens. “The kids also put in a lot of time during the track season and the offseason. It’s going to be exciting to see how this year progresses and I really think we could have a couple of runners that make it to state.”
Symens said the focus of the team’s preseason workouts has been conditioning and helping the younger runners get a handle on pacing themselves during a race.
“We’ve been working on our endurance and pacing throughout a race,” said the B-H coach. “Pacing is one of the hardest things to do so that you don’t take off too fast and die in the middle or end up sprinting the last 400 because you haven’t used anything the whole race. We will be using those first few meets to show us where we’re at and where we need to go the rest of the year.
“This is a sport where you need to push yourself, and you are only going to be as good as you push yourself to be,” concluded Symens. “My goal is to give our runners all the tools and motivation they need and help them to believe they can do it.”
