The high school cross country team demonstrated an exceptional performance, securing a commendable rank in their state competition as Girls took sixth place, and Boys took third. Their dedication, teamwork, and endurance were unmatched while achieving this impressive rank among competing schools. 

The team this year is pretty young and after losing many talented seniors last year, upperclassmen were able to set the standards high. Going into the season with many undetermined outcomes of how the freshman would perform, they pulled it off and put in the work to show up for their team. Overall, the team is pretty happy with their performance throughout the season and has made a lot of successful progress in their time and points. 

“I felt that we definitely grew a lot as a team as the season went on. We lost a lot of points with seniors graduating last year as well but luckily we got a lot of fast freshmen to make up the points so I think the team was pretty happy with how we placed,” Drew Muller ‘24 said.

Girls Cross Country is pretty satisfied with their race to the end of the season. Many of the times were improved and so many connections were made. Girls on the team have attributed their success this season to the morale and chemistry of the team.

 “I think the team chemistry is very strong, we definitely lost a lot of seniors last year which was a weird adjustment. But the team as a whole still had a really fun atmosphere and everyone played a big part in that,” Muller said.

Senior Drew Muller, and Junior Sadey Seyfurth both had an exceptional season, making all-state this difficult season. Muller helped lead her team this season as one of the four captains on the team. Muller has performed exceptionally in her high school career, being on the varsity team all four years. Next fall, she will be furthering her academic and athletic career at West Virginia University. 

As the season came to a close, the team was in high spirits and satisfied with their successful year. This season was without a doubt, a season to remember. 

The Boys Cross Country team took third at states which was not what they were hoping for as they were shooting for first place but the boys ran exceptionally otherwise. Seniors Alex Thole and Ryan Brinker both made All-State this season, showing their hard work and training to pay off. Both of these seniors were captains this season and showed exceptional leadership and performance this season.

Brinker spoke up on their experience over the season, “Sometimes the race is out of your control and you need to just perform your best no matter other circumstances. The team chemistry was fun. We had a lot of freshman involvement and senior leaders which turned out to work pretty well,” Brinker said. 

The team made a great deal of progress and connections this season. Although their placing at states didn’t quite reflect their season the way they wanted, the boys reached new personal records, made progress, and had an abundance of growth this season.

Between both the Pioneer cross country teams, there was significant progress made throughout their season as well as a lot of freshman involvement giving the team hope for the future as the senior leaders leave. The performance of the teams this season has yet again proved the exceptional cross-country programs here at EGR.