XC season comes to a close

            As the seasons comes to an end for the cross-country team, the runners feel as if they conquered most of their goals and met their expectations for a great results for the season.
“I think the team did a lot better then we expected to do,” said junior Michael Ejigu. “We had a lot of rebuilding for us and had a lot of younger people so next year’s season will be great.”
         
          While the coaches and the runners had high expectation for the whole team, they pulled through and performed at their hardest, ending their season with a 6th place finish for the girls, and 5th place for the boys. Only one person advanced to regionals, where senior Scott Plunkett completed the 3-mile run finishing in 10th place in 15:28, representing AHS proudly.

         “They improved their times tremendously” said Harris, “For the most part; Scott [Plunkett] is the district champ.”

           For the rest of the team, they came through and performed at a higher level then last year, where the furthest they advanced to were districts, compared to this year where one person, Plunkett, went on to states.

           As the 2008 season ends many of the runners are sad to watch it go including sophomore, Natalie Johnson.

          “I’m sad because our team was really close and we always have a really good time together, I’m going to miss Saturday meets because our team just hung out for about 6 or 7 hours straight playing games, talking, tanning, or cheering each other on,” said Johnson.

           Similar to all the other sports at AHS, the team has bonded well and has become more friendly towards each other. From August to November the cross-country team has spent their Saturday mornings waking up at 6 am and leaving the park at 1 or 2 o’clock in the afternoon.

           The most impressive part of the season is the incredible performance done by senior Scott Plunkett, who qualified for the state race.

            “It feels really rewarding to make it to regionals, and then states,” said Plunkett. “I really put in a ton of my time over the summer running, so it feels great to have it all pay off.”

            Through the summer and leading into the season Plunkett has been training six times a week, and progressively ran more and more. As the season started he feels as if all the training had paid off.
Since the 2008 season is coming to a close, all coach Harris can pay attention to now is the upcoming 2009 season and prepare for the hard working and training to exceed his expectations.

          “I have very high expectations, they need to be in the top four just to see their high talents.” said Coach Harris.
           
             The Atoms hope to have a successful season next year in 2009, despite the fact that they are losing one of their top runners.