After first and second place finishes respectively for the boys and girls squads at last weekend’s UTA Gerald Richey Invitational meet, the cross country teams focus their training to prepare for their home meet, the Lovejoy Fall Festival on Saturday, Sept. 23.

“I think that we performed really well. We worked hard in preparation for the meet and it definitely showed,” sophomore Will Muirhead said. “We are in a really good place right now as a team and need to just keep it up.”

At UTA, the boys won easily by 27 points, trailed by Coppell at second. The boys’ top runners were sophomore Brady Laboret at second overall with a time of 16:14, then senior Ryan Brands at 16:35, followed by the trio of junior Brett Pedersen, senior Bradley Davis, and sophomore Will Muirhead, all within 16:41 to 16:45. The team had five finishers in the top 10 also taking the 11th and 12th spot.

The girls also fared well, taking second place for the second time this season. Junior Carson Hockersmith led the way with a time of 19:32, placing fourth overall. Next came the trio of sophomore Sofia Estes, Amelia Carothers, and senior Emily Gueller, all within the 21:03 to 21:05 time mark.

“We ran really well as a team [last week], the team chemistry is high and all the girls are working hard going into the Fall Festival on Saturday,” junior Reagan Raforth said.

The main competition at the Fall Festival will be Grapevine, Hebron, and Donna North. The Fall Festival will taking place at Meyers Park, one of the hardest courses to run in Texas due to a giant hill and series of inclined and declination areas. In order to prepare for this, the team does hill workouts one day out of the week to get a feel for what it will be like on race day.

“My preparation for this meet has been mainly drinking a lot of water and electrolytes because it will be hot for the race,” said Brands. “We have done this course for years and I’m not worried about it. This will be my ninth time racing this course; I know it like the back of my hand.”