Boys Cross Country Team Coming Together

Despite how COVID-19 has affected their season, the boys cross country team is working hard despite meet cancelations, rescheduling and they are coming together for one common goal, state.

Originally, there would only be a single sectional for the team to make it to sectionals. However, this year a new subsectional was added. So far this season the team has won two invitationals, the Homestead Highlander Invite and the Homestead Cross Country Meet, and has come in a close second in the other two meets.

“Because of the fact that they changed our sectionals, had it been the same this year as last year I would have no doubt that we would go to state,” head coach Paul Horanoff said. This season they have put all the teams in the area in one sectional. In Hartford’s sectional, there are six of the top ten teams in the state.

“Right now I do think that we’ll make it past sub-sectionals to sectionals, but sectionals is gonna be really tough this year,” junior Cael Schoemann said.

The team will be going up against the best two teams in the state to get a spot.

The team is warming up together and they are coming up with strategies like setting goals at the start of the year and visualizing their race prior to running. Ultimately they are working more like a team rather than individual runners.

“I believe they’re doing pre-meet, they are getting their heads into the game more than we’ve seen in the past years,” Horanoff said.

This team has the same goal of state and is willing to train harder for each meet.

“The team this year is probably the most cohesive team I have ever been on,” sophomore Nash Merklein said. “We all want to get to state and win meets, so this is very important.”

He also said the team has been rooting for each other to do well.

“The team definitely feels a lot closer than the past few years really just because we’re better,” Schoemann said. “We actually have goals that we believe we can obtain and every guy is in on it.”