The Wildcats made a short trek over to Springboro High School on Saturday for the Springboro Invitational. The looped course was fairly flat, very spectator friendly, full of energy and ripe for some new PR’s. Almost the entire boys and girls squads came away with either new personal records or season best times. With the dry conditions over the last month it was some dusty running but that didn’t seem to bother anyone too much.

The boys were once again down our top runner, as Conner Green continues to recover in preparation for the second half of our season. In addition Donaven Butler needed some rest this week as well to combat some muscle fatigue from a busy first half of the season setting new PR’s every race. Those that did run for the boys this weekend sure came to race. Sophomore Oliver Crosthwaite (17:48) led the team by besting his old PR by a full 22 seconds and breaking into the 17’s for the first time. He was followed by strong performances and new personal bests by Daniel Osborne (19:09), Connor Cole (20:49), and Titus Routson (26:22). Caleb Osborne came away just shy of his PR from last season but still ran his best time of the year finishing in 21:24.

The girls fought hard on a quick course despite not feeling 100%. Laila Black (23:26) crossed the finish line first for the wildcats with another personal record. Bryley Wulff and Kydee Shults were neck in neck racing down the final stretch of the course with Bryley edging out Kydee by 1/10 of a second (24:15). Despite being sick the majority of the week, Sarah Wallace had a great race (25:23). Rounding out the top 5 was Julionnya Junaitis with a very quick first mile to finish with yet again another personal record (32:43). “It was great to see the ladies have another great race under their belt,” coach Hill states. “These ladies are going to do some great things in a couple of weeks at the conference meet.”

Next weekend the Wildcats will be traveling to Cedarville University for the Friendship Invitational. This is hosted on the University’s Elvin R. King cross country course, which also hosts the district tournament where the Wildcats will run in mid october. This is a beautifully laid out course that always produces some fast times, even with the rolling hills. This is going to be a good barometer of where the teams stand as they make the final push towards the postseason.