On Saturday, Sept. 8, the CHS XC team competed in their first meet of the season at the Tahoma Relays. This is a good, low-key, fun meet to start the season. The invite consists of a 5 person x 3K (1.8 miles) relay race. The “highlight” of the course is a 100m portion that goes through a lake at about knee-high height. Because of this water and a narrow wooded course, the times don’t translate well to an overall mile pace.

The Athletes of the Meet were Tony Minaglia and Tyler McKinney. It certainly appears that we will have some pack running this year. Katie Bunker and Jessica Beam ran identical times even though they ran different legs. The #4, #5, #6, #7 boys ran within 6 secs of each other.

On Sept. 13, CHS XC competed at our first Cascade Conference league meet of the season in Sultan. There were four teams at the meet, Sultan, Archbishop Murphy, Lakewood and CHS.

The girls team finished 3rd, behind two girls teams that could both be state qualifiers. The boys showed that it will probably be a top two boys and a slew of 6-8 boys finishing out our top group. The boys team finished 2nd behind Lakewood which is ranked 5th in the state. The times were really fast for the runners. The athletes of the meet were Cara Strodel and Aziza Sial. Cara finished as our # 1 runner and Aziza ran her best race in her two years in the program.

Our next race is Tuesday the 18th at CHS as we host South Whidbey and Sultan.