Cross country dashes into two top finishes at state

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Abby Russell, Staff Writer

The cross country teams, both boys and girls, placed well at state. The girl team won the state meet and received the Academic State Champion Award while the boys placed second overall.
Sophomore varsity runner Sophia Lindstrom is particularly happy with the teams’ accomplishment.
“My team did excellent. We worked together and powered through together. We did our best and I’m so proud of us. I didn’t expect to do as well as I did. I was just racing against the clock, but when I found out that I placed 15th at state I was so surprised and excited,” Lindstrom said.
Not only did the girls win state, but a week earlier they received the Academic State Champion award.
“An Academic State Championship means that we are also hard working at school! I’m very proud to get this award and I’m going to put it on every college app!” Lindstrom said.
Senior captain Carlyn Schmidgall credits this award to the teams’ work ethic.
“It’s really neat because our GPA that ended up winning was calculated with all the girls from the team. It really is a testament to all the hard working girls we had on the team,” Schmidgall said.
The boys cross country team also placed very high at state and exceeded its expectations.
“I was happy with my performance and my teams. I’m very proud of getting 2nd at state, which is the highest we could’ve placed and we made many memories,” senior captain Andrew Cooper said.
Newcomer Luke Knoblich is thankful for his captain Cooper and gives him some of the credit for the season’s success.
“I was really nervous for state but our captain had us get together and do a lot of team bonding to prepare. At state I ran a personal best by five seconds and I was very happy with my race,” freshmen Luke Knoblich said.
Cooper also finally met long term personal goals at the 2A State Championship and is very excited to continue running. He got fouth place and the top five runners at state qualify for the Border Clash cross county meet,
“I was very satisfied that I qualified for Boarder Clash, which is meet with the top qualifying boys from Washington against the top runners from Oregon,” Cooper Said.