On Wednesday evening, the Cross Country season came to an end with the District Championship meet held at Andy Brown West Park. All 7 teams from the district brought their top runners in what promised to be the most competitive event of the season. And all four teams from North had championship aspirations on their minds!
First up was the 8th grade girls race. And to borrow from baseball, the old saying goes, "The tie goes to the runner." However, how does it work out when two XC teams tie for the championship? And that is exactly what happened as both CMS East and CMS North both tallied 39 points... so the 6th place runner gave the tiebreaker to the Lady Broncos from East; leaving the Lady Cougars painfully close in 2nd place. Leading the charge was Finleigh Sanders-Burk who finished strong and WON the individual district championship. Laurel Storey in 4th and Jaehee Lee in 5th also added to the success finishing in the Top 5 overall.
On the boys side, the 8th grade Cougars looked to show out with personal bests and team success as well. Vihaan Sahni, as he did in every meet this fall, led North around the course finishing in 4th place overall. He was joined by Vihaan Sharma (16th) as the only other Cougar inside of the Top 20. But with the competitive field, North still finished in the middle of the pack taking 4th place. But now, for both the boys and the girls teams, they can begin looking ahead to our middle school track season this spring and high school cross country training starting next summer!
The 7th grade ladies were looking to back up their Zone Meet championship from last week with a bigger trophy this week... and they did not disappoint. Finishing with a total of 41 points, the Lady Cougars easily closed out the championship over all six other teams to add another BANNER-WORTHY result to their season. North was paced by Angie Nguyen in 4th place and Kate McGrath in 5th; followed by Milleena Garcia in 7th, Mirabelle Sagel in 11th, Renatta Sinacori Materano in 14th, Brylee Felix in 15th, and Nadia Stanback in 18th to round out the Top 20! It was a dominating performance by a team that grew stronger each week and who has definitely put out a notice to the rest of the District that they are the team to beat looking ahead to next year!
And to run the final race of the season, the North 7th grade boys were also looking to back up their Zone Championship from last week. And it was a race that came down to the wire in a extremely tough field of runners. Leading the way for the Cougars was Oscar Martin in 3rd overall followed closely by Mason Hotle in 9th. Taichi Oyama (16th), Jaithra Nettem (18th), and Jarom Hewett (19th) rounded out the Top 20 giving North a total of 65 points. So was that strong enough? Sadly, not quite... and the Cougars were edged out by Colleyville MS for the championship by 5 tiny points. However, much like the 7th grade ladies, their future is very bright and they will look to build upon this success next year.
Well, that's a wrap! It was a great fall season (that never quite felt like fall... hopefully soon enough). UP NEXT- Basketball, wrestling, and off-season workouts are right around the corner!
#GoCougars!
