In sports there’s that one objective that seems to always get the best of you. In cross country, many can agree that the hills are the toughest task to overcome. Heading into Saturday everybody knew that George Rogers was a hilly course, but there were no hill workouts. Coach Justin Creps responded to this saying, “Long term, I wasn’t overly concerned with our performance at this meet specifically.  The more important meets (MOAC and Districts) that we are training for are not heavy on hills. Yet we did sufficient hill work throughout our summer conditioning, so the team was already prepared.” Whether or not this is the reason why the team didn’t perform as usual is still up in the air.

    In the high school boys’ race, a simple mistake by the meet officials cost one Alder runner’s his race. George Rogers is known for its cannon to send the runners off, but a cannon malfunction meant that the official had to shoot the gun to start the race. Freshman Gavin Frick was one of few runners who jumped at the gun to start the race. Adrenaline put in him first place of the race for about 400 m until the lead group managed to pass him. Frick finished 18th running a disappointing 18:38. Freshman Luke Malone surged to another impressive race placing 7th running a 17:59. Malone and Frick were right there with each other until the 2nd mile where Malone showed off his always impressive kick. Freshmen Zach Hicks and Michael Gray both got stopped by the hills as well, running a 19:18 and a 20:16 respectively. The boys finished in the middle of the pack again placing 8th out of 16 teams.

    Senior Aziza Ayoub continued her string of successful finishes, placing 2nd while running a 20:34. Ayoub was eleven seconds off of first place. Sophomore Ashlyn McDaniels continued her George Rogers dominance placing 13th running a 22:08. Though the cannon shot properly for the girls race, it had an opposite effect for some of the new runners to the program. Sophomore Lauryn Saxour ran her first race at George Rogers and was surprised with the cannon stating, “The cannon made me more aware before my race.” Saxour ended up running a 28:37. Saxour also stated that the cannon made the meet very unique.
    The Pioneers look forward to the highly anticipated North Union Invitational where bringing hardware home is an usual occurrence.