Varsity Cross Country competed at districts Oct. 29  and placed 5th as a team, narrowly missing a team bid to state.

“It [districts] went really well. We had three girls make it to state. We didn’t make it as a team, but placed fifth which is one place off from state which is still super good. We did better than we were expecting,” senior Paige Shinabery said.

The three seniors who qualified for State are seniors Evyn Humphrey, who placed 2nd, Natalie Sollors, who placed 16th, and Ella Coulter, who placed 18th.

“Leading up to districts we were all pretty nervous because we wanted to make it to state as a team really badly,” Shinabery said.

The runners trained really hard for districts. Shinaberry said she started training for districts as soon as the season started. Even with all the training, however, she said that there were still feelings of uneasy emotions.

“We knew it was basically going to be a mental game and whoever wanted it more [would win], so we had to train really hard and had some really tough workouts,” Shinabery said.

With the cross country season near its end, the seniors reminisced about their favorite memories and what they took away from being on cross country.

“I was super excited to get to run my last race and I wanted it to be a good one so I just ran the very, very best that I could.” Shinabery said.

Sollors said the team finishing in the top 3 in most of their meets shows how hard they have worked this season.

The MSHSSA Cross Country Championships will be held on Saturday, Nov. 4, at Gans Creek Cross Country course in Columbia, Missouri. The girls race will start at 2:15 pm.