On Wednesday, the North Cross Country squad loaded up the busses for their only out-of-town meet this season and headed to Cross Timbers Middle School to run in the Grapevine Invitational. Following a bye week after the first meet, all of the Cougar runners were ready to run!

The 8th grade girls started things off with a BANG... and came a whisker away from a perfect score of 15. In what seemed to be a parade to the finish line, Jaehee Lee led the way to 1st place with a time of 13:33; followed closely by Finleigh Sanders-Burk (2nd), Laurel Storey (3rd), Sophia Sarmiento (4th), and Hannah Miller in 6th. Their total of 16 points was smashing; and both Paola Arconada Simonovis (8th) and Brooklin Windfield (9th) also joined the attack! The Lady Cougars have now won both meets this season and aren't looking to slow down anytime soon.
North- 16
Heritage- 66
Grapevine- 67

Not to be outdone, North's 7th grade girls also had the goal of being champions this time around and wanted to show what they can do! Led by Angie Nguyen (2nd) who ran a time of 14:01, the Cougars propelled themselves to victory with Mirabelle Sagel (5th), Jennifer Lee (7th), Kate Li (8th), Angelica Bennet (9th), Milleena Garcia (10th), and Safirah Burgos (11th) dashing to the line for a dominant finish.
North- 31
Heritage- 57
Grapevine- 64

On the boys side, the 7th grade Cougars were eager and ready! But the host Grapevine had revenge on their minds after placing behind North at the previous meet... and it led to a battle all around. North was paced by Oscar Martin who finished in 3rd place overall as he battled it out with 3 Grapevine runners at the top. North also saw Austin Shelby (5th), Taichi Oyama (6th), Graham Burgess (11th), and Jaithra Nettem (12th) run solid races to fill their scoring slots. In the end though, Grapevine was just too strong at the top though leaving the Cougars in second place.
Grapevine- 27
North- 37
Heritage- 70

And rounding out the action was the Cougar 8th grade boys who ran into some tough competition at this meet. For the second straight meet, Vihaan Sahni didn't hold back and led from wire to wire to secure his second individual meet championship in first place! Other runners adding to the effort included Vihaan Sharma in 7th, Tomas Morales in 15th, Emiliano Noyola Garcias in 19th, and Nehemiah Skariah finishing 20th overall. However, it just wasn't quite enough to edge out the Heritage Hawks as the Cougars landed in third place on the night.
Grapevine- 25
Heritage- 60
North- 62

Looking ahead, North's entire squad will be featured next week as they host the Coppell North CC Invitational meet at Andy Brown West on Wednesday, 10/9. This will be the last regular meet before ending the season with Zone and District Championship events later in the month. Come on our and cheer the Cougars on to victory!