On Saturday the Wildcat Cross Country teams traveled to Cedarville University’s Elvin R. King Cross Country Course for the Friendship Invitational. Our teams competed in the Gold races against OHSAA division 1 teams from all over Ohio. The boys race had over 500 runners while the girls race had over 450 runners. The weather was warm and sunny, not ideal for racing, but our teams made the best of it.

The boys team had some great individual performances. Our team was led by Oliver Crosthwaite who ran an 18:16, which was a full four minutes faster than at the same meet last year. He was followed by Daniel Osborne who ran 19:04 to set a new career best and beat his time from the same meet last year by over a minute. Connor Cole (21:07), Caleb Osborne (21:32) and Titus Routson (27:15) also turned in respectable times for the course and conditions of the day.

The girls had another great performance this week. With homecoming this night, the girls were able to run in the Division 1 race and they did not disappoint. Laila Black (22:58) came in first for the Wildcats with another PR. Our 2 through 4 ran across the line 40 seconds apart!! Sarah Wallace, Kydee Shults, and Bryley Wulff sprinted down the straight away to the finish line. Sarah finally broke 24:00 with a time of 23:59.9 while Kydee ran another PR of 24:06. Julionnya Junaitis came across the finish line just 3 seconds from her PR. “Cedarville is not a fast course, and to see the girls come out with 2 PRs and a season best is amazing,” Coach Hill states, “1 more hard week and we will be cruising into conference week.”

This coming Saturday your Franklin Wildcats will be traveling to one of the premier meets in the entire Midwest at Centerville’s Saturday Night Lights. The schedule for the night includes multiple races with over 1300 girls and 1400 boys competing and the premier races of the night, featuring some of the fastest runners from the entire state as well as neighboring states, will kick off at 9:25 and 9:55 pm. Come out to cheer on your Wildcat runners and enjoy the electric atmosphere.