This cross country season has been an incredible journey riddled with glorious highs and sobering lows on the rouged trail to our second consecutive 3A state championship.
It all began this past summer, when our team began base training for the season to come. Training at a local nature preserve several times a week and on the track the other days, our newbies began to learn the sport and bond with our veteran runners. Our team looked quite solid, and with the majority of our previous state championship team returning, our team had high hopes for a chance to repeat.
After several weeks into our summer training, the time for the toughest and most rewarding part of our training had arrived: the week of Brevard Distance Runners Camp. Summer training simply is not complete without the week of bonding as a team and overcoming challenges in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in Brevard, North Carolina.
Every day we literally had another mountain to climb. One of the first “defining moments” (as our coach Eric Frank said) was a workout we had at running camp. The previous day one of the best trails, Lake Imaging, was rained out, so Coach decided to have the varsity do a tempo run on the track there. To say the least, no one was happy, especially with the aching of the previous mountain run still lingering in our legs. No one expected it to be a good workout, but everyone was wrong except Coach. We all had amazing workouts, negative splitting almost every mile. After that workout, we felt we could do anything. But the road ahead was long and winding, with many unexpected turns to come.
Before the final (and one of the most difficult) run up a trail to a place called John’s Rock, our full team met to decide on our goals, a Creekside Cross Country tradition. The goals we set were lofty and challenging. We also had a senior meeting during which we laid out our thoughts on what we wanted this team to be. After about two hours of heartfelt goal setting and planning for the future of our team and the program, it was time for our final run.
It was an awesome climb, ending with an amazing view from the top. But something was not right. All of our varsity had made it to the top except for one, Reece Duff. When he finally made it, we found out he had twisted his ankle badly on the way up, but he was feeling better and was able to make it down.
One week after running camp, it was confirmed that Reece was not fine. After excruciating pain on a bridge workout, he was diagnosed with tibia fractures and was unable to run for potentially the entire season. That was an enormous blow to our team. Reece, our No. 4, was potentially out for the entire season. When he got his cast put on, he remembers crying in the car with his mom as they drove away from the hospital. He thought his season was over. But Coach called him, and after that phone call, he had a new goal: to race his senior year.
If that wasn’t bad enough, just two weeks later our No. 3, Jackson Storey, was diagnosed with plantar fasciitis and was out for an undetermined amount of time. They both were stuck on the stationary bike every day at practice.
The team was truly in dire straits with the beginning of the season just around the corner. Things were not looking good. Our first race at Spikes and Spurs was disappointing. Then the next week, after getting crushed at Bartram’s Bail and Trail – we came in fourth overall – Coach decided enough was enough. He sat the varsity down and told us how it was: That we had depth. That we did not need Jackson and Reece to win. That we had it inside of us. That we needed to turn it on when it was time to turn it on and turn everything else off. To battle. To leave everything on the line for our teammates. It was time for things to change. And change they did. With the turnaround of our team came personal bests, but also the knowledge that no matter what happened, we could overcome.
About a month before districts, we finally got Jackson back. He had been impatient with his injury and badly wanted to fill the hole in the team, which probably made his first race back all the more disappointing. He planned on coming back at least in the 16s, but ended up running high 17s. He was worried he would not be back to full strength in time for districts.
Miraculously, we got Reece back in time to run him at districts. Every day the motivation of the team kept him peddling away on that stationary bike. He had a purpose beyond himself.
The district meet was the first time all season we showed what our team could truly do. We set personal records, and we won districts by a wide margin. Matt Clark and Nick Deal took first and second; Jackson Storey set a new personal record; Alex Bolt and Matt Ortiz ran in the mid 16s; and Reece, Ian Smith, Riley Strauch, and I all running in the low to mid 17s. No one even thought of Ian as a contender until the week before districts, and now he was our No. 6! Creekside was back, and we were ready to win.
While regionals did not go as planned, losing to our rival Chiles by just nine points, we would not make the same mistake at states. At our team meeting before the state meet, everyone knew what they had to do. We were racing for our brothers. No one would forget Matt’s statement: “I have 100 percent faith in all of you that we will win another state title.”
With just a mile to go in the state meet, we were losing. But two of our runners really turned the tides. Jackson Storey finished in nearly under 16 minutes. Then Alex Bolt sealed the deal when he finished 12 places in front of Chile’s No. 5. We were state champs. Again. We won by just 10 points against Chiles two years in a row. It was a surreal experience. Some of our guys had been working toward that moment since sixth grade, and it was finally here. We had done it. Against numerous odds, we had done it.
The Road to a Cross Country State Championship
Written by: Baker Herrin – Senior at Creekside High school
