Recap: What a fantastic way to close out the regular cross country season!  The Viking XC team followed up an impressive performance last week at Hudson with an even more impressive one at the NWOAL Championship Meet.  Out of the 26 runners who participated, we had 20 Personal Records, one season best, five All League performances, four class records and one school record.

The High School girls kicked off the meet with an extremely strong performance. Coming in to the meet, we expected to be competitive with our league rivals, and while a fourth place finish wasn’t quite what we expected it certainly wasn’t because we failed to perform at our best.  Sarah led the Lady Vikes again with a new sophomore record time only a second behind the school record, and in so doing finished atop the NWOAL Second Team All League team. Trinity followed up by tying her season best time just six seconds behind the junior record, putting her at the head of the NWOAL Honorable Mention All League team. Katie and Ashley turned in their usual strong PR performances, with Ashley returning from injury to take almost 40 seconds off her time. Heidi provided one of the most exciting results of the day, smashing through a PR that had stood since her sophomore year prior to injury. She has worked and fought throughout this season, and it was great to see her finally push through to her best run.  Hannah continued her dramatic improvement, taking another full minute off her PR (she has now dropped 5 minutes from Defiance), and Alexis rounded out the Top 7.

The High School boys followed the girls with another great effort in a very crowded field that was almost double the size of the girls race.  Ben bettered his own freshman record in earning a place on the NWOAL Honorable Mention All League team. Phoenix bettered his own PR as well, finishing in the Top 25 in his last NWOAL meet. Kyle PR’d with his second straight sub-20 performance, and Tom and Augie worked together to break the 21-minute barrier for the first time.  Alex ran his personal best for the sixth straight meet, and Chan axed another 41 seconds off his PR. Jared fought through a pretty tough race, just ahead of Ashton who returned from injury to set a new PR. Gavin and Pete finished us out for the Viking Men, with each just missing their personal best from the week before. Overall, the men moved up a spot from last year, finishing in 7th place despite having one of the youngest teams on the course.

Here are the results for the High School:

The Middle School runners took the cue from the High School and ran their best.  Kayla took the top spot for the Viking Girls again, taking an impressive 23 second off her previous mark to set a new school record. Kennedy was hot on her heels the whole race, bettering her 8th grade record by an incredible 38 seconds and joining Kayla in claiming NWOAL All League honors. Jolie battled through significant cramps throughout the race to take another 6 seconds off her PR, bringing her total improvement since the beginning of the season to an incredible 6:30!  Izzy rounded out the girls’ effort by taking over minute off her own PR.

For the boys, Chris and Evan again pushed each other from start to finish, with Chris just edging out Evan in the final sprint for a 32 second PR that was over two minutes better than last year’s NWOAL time. Evan was finally able to break through and set a new personal best after chasing all year after last year’s gutsy league meet effort. Owen ran a very strong race, breaking the 15 minute barrier for the very first time, and Will held on despite having an off day to post his second best time ever.

Here are the results for the Middle School:

Again, what a way to close out the regular cross country season.  Great performances all around.

Full Event Results are available on Baumspage.

Up Next: The High School teams travel to Owens CC Findlay campus for the District Championship, with the top four teams and top 16 individuals advancing to Regionals in Tiffin.  Our girls team has an excellent shot at advancing for the first time since 2007, so stay tuned for more information!