Cross country teams running through middle of season

        The Western High School cross country teams traveled to MSU to compete against 45 other teams, and are looking forward to their I-8 League Jamboree meet this Tuesday.

The Western High School cross country teams competed against fierce competition in the Spartan Invite at Michigan State University this past Friday. Out of 45 D1 and D2 teams, the men finished 18th overall, and the women finished 27th overall. The top five runners for the men were sophomore Gezahegn Starr (17:11), seniors Lake Buseth (17:45), Tyler Robertson (17:50), and Tristan Kellar (18:06), and sophomore Collin Patrick (18:26). Coach Sharp mentioned Starr as “consistently [being] our lead runner.” She also noted Patrick, who is running at speeds two minutes faster than he was at this point last season, and is filling the very important 5th spot on the team.

On the women’s side, freshman Quinn Natschke (20:34), sophomore Rachel Vogt (22:00), freshman Olivia Hubbard (22:03), senior Noel Nagy (23:13), and sophomore Molly Chinavare (23:18) scored for the Panthers. Natschke had her season’s best time and just missed a medal. Hubbard and Vogt have also been valuable additions to the team, according to Coach Sharp.

The I-8 League Jamboree is coming up on Tuesday, September 20th. Currently, the team is ranked 2nd in their region. To make their goal of getting to states as a team (which hasn’t been done in almost 10 years), Coach Sharp said they need to “concentrate on getting our 4th and 5th spots closer in times to our top three.”

~CMO