On a traditionally successful course for Spartans, the girls’ cross country team was one place away from qualifying for a trip to state at their home meet on Thursday, Oct. 24.
The team also placed second at their conference meet in Muscatine last month, a title they have won eight times in the last decade. While this season was statistically less successful than in the past, members and fans know that is anything but the case.
Last season, there were four consistent senior varsity members on the team, three of which have gone on to run at the collegiate level, so their absence this season was felt by many members on the team. Three out of the five had been varsity runners all four years on the team, so their leadership was influential to the underclassmen.
Current sophomore and varsity runner, Sydney Brandmeyer, grew very close to these former seniors as a freshman, and definitely saw the effect of their absence on the team. “This season was a lot different than last year because with our varsity we were almost starting over,” she said. “We lost a lot of maturity when they left, but we’ve been working hard and gaining that back.”
What they may lack in maturity and composure, the current runners make up for it in work ethic and passion.
Other teams were loaded with experienced upperclassmen runners, so the Spartans were always considered an underdog. While many expected their results to fall short of those in the year before, they rose to the occasion in multiple instances, placing high at meets in Iowa City, Davenport, and Sterling.
Seemingly a slow start for usually such a successful team to some, the girls had a different mindset. Though they were deemed the underdogs on numerous occasions, they knew the only direction to go was up.
Senior runner, Ella Rekow, agreed with Brandmeyer that the girls made huge improvements from the beginning of the season to their last meet in areas of team bonding and grit. “While placement in meets is a big deal, it’s more important to improve every race, which we almost always did,” she said.
Being the counterpart to the highly successful boys team, the girls worked hard to not compare their achievements to them but rather celebrate together. “The boys varsity team is mainly upperclassmen, so they didn’t have to work on making connections as much as we did,” she said. “Still, we all worked hard together toward our common goal and made a lot of new friendships out of it.”
As many of the girls can attest to, losing dependent and strong leaders can always be a tough loss, but it is a blessing in disguise. Beginning and ending the 2019 cross country season on the same course was special to many of the girls, and showed just how much progress they made, not only in the physical aspect, but the mental and social realms of being apart of a team as well.
A bittersweet end to a season filled with ups and downs, the girls are more than excited to see what their young talent will bring in the seasons to come.
