Just because a sport does not have meets on campus does not mean its importance should be overshadowed. The Flint Hill Varsity Cross Country team traveled to Derwood Park during Homecoming weekend for their fifth meet of the season. Cross Country is sometimes looked at as a sport that does not require an extensive amount of effort compared to other sports, but that is simply not the case. Week in and week out, the team works very vigorously to prepare for their meets and improve every practice. Everyone runs countless miles so that every week each person has a small total time decrease at the meet. However, the conditions of this Homecoming were not ideal for most of the runners.

 The Huskies came into this meet a little unprepared, but this was due to limited practices as a result of the constant rainfall. In addition, Derwood Park conditions were extremely poor and muddy this year, which led to multiple runners slipping on the course. 

In the Homecoming meet, various runners were also inclined to deal with injuries. One key injury to the team was the Boys’ number one runner Bensten Schone. Schone was dealing with some shin splints, and instead of sitting out the meet, he ran in the JV boy’s race at a slower pace to still help the team out in any way he could. In the Homecoming day race, the Boys’ best runner was Micah Krasner with a time of 21:43, and the Girls’ best runner was Maddy Watkins with a time of 24:22. Way to fight through the poor conditions to lead the Huskies in the timesheet.

In conclusion, this Homecoming weekend, the Varsity Cross Country team persevered through injuries and poor weather to battle in their meet, as they will for the remainder of the season.