The cross country team traveled to Fayetteville, Arkansas on Friday, Oct. 4 where they competed in the Chile Pepper Cross Country Festival on Saturday, Oct. 5. Out of 103 teams, the boys varsity placed fifth overall and the girls varsity placed third out of 81 teams. The JV boys team placed 12th out of 73 teams and JV girls placed 11th out of 47 teams.

The cross country festival is a large annual event that invites college, high school and middle school athletes to come and compete in a variety of races on a well-known college course.  

Junior Cameron Coad describes what it was like to compete in such a big event.

“Racing in a larger field was definitely intimidating and quite stressful at times,” Coad said. “It was mostly like any other race,inus the fact that you had to basically hug your teammate at the start line.”

With fierce competition to race against and warm weather, junior Emma Cross explains how she prepared for the race and how she felt the team did.

“To prepare for this race, I drank a lot of water because of how hot it was,” Cross explains. “As a team, everyone did really well and we all pushed each other to get up towards the front of the pack in each race.”

The team traveled over three hours down to Fayetteville, Arkansas on a bus and got to enjoy some team bonding experiences.

“My favorite part [about the trip was] having such a good time with the team” Coad explains. “Or [it was] venturing under the bus seats and stealing some of our teammates stuff, of course we gave them [their belongings] back.” 

“My favorite part [about traveling to Arkansas] was getting to spend time with my teammates on the bus ride,” Cross said.

The team competes again on Thursday, Oct. 10 at Shawnee Mission Park.