By: Gabe Kleiber

The Highland cross country team started practicing on August 15th, but didn’t make their racing debut for the season until half a month later.

On September 2nd, the team started off the year with the Irish Invite, which was hosted at Rosemount High School. This race was a 2 mile, and the course had a wide open field at the beginning and end, great for a fast start and well timed kick. The girls did amazing during this race, with both varsity and junior varsity winning 1st place. The JV boys got 4th, and many of the boys varsity runners were sick, shortly prior to the race, so they didn’t run as hard. But overall, the team did well here, especially the girls.

A week after this, on the 9th of September, the city conference 2 mile was hosted on our very own course right outside the school. Both varsity and JV girls teams, as well as the boys varsity ended up winning, with the JV boys getting 3rd. The team clearly was more prepared for this race, with every part of the team either winning again or placing higher than the last race.

One runner that stood out to a lot of people was Luna Scorzelli, a Junior from Highland. She ran 2 miles in 10:53, beating out the entire rest of the field by 40 seconds! The rest of the varsity girls did amazing too, with 7 of the top 10 finishers being from Highland. Overall, a very solid race across the board.

One thing we know for sure, is that this season, so far, has been great for the girls varsity. In the Roy Griak Invitational, one of the largest races in the Midwest, with teams from multiple different states competing on the same course, the girls placed 5th out of over 50 teams and almost 500 competitors! This happened on September 23rd, and the season doesn’t end until early November. Who knows if Highland can keep up their amazing season, but we can certainly hope.