Osky XC Shows Well At Knoxville Invitational

by Michael Comfort

The Oskaloosa XC team was in action tonight at the Knoxville Invitational. The varsity boys finished 3rd and the varsity girls finished 4th (no JV scores were kept).

“We’ve struggled at this meet the last 3 years. It is a tough course but I felt in the past we haven’t competed to our best abilities. I challenged the team to break that streak and they did that. This is a course where you typically won’t run your best time, so I’m more concerned with how well we race tactically and compete against the other teams. This is the boys 4th top 3 finish of the season and the girls best finish of the season so far.”

The boys were led by Will Roach who placed 10th in a time of 18:07. “The boys got out well and were a little too spread out in the beginning, but they fought hard over the last half of the race to close their gaps and secure 3rd place. This is the first year on varsity for 5 of these runners, so I am impressed with their abilities to make adjustments during races and stick together for the good of the team.”

The girls were led by Tierney Carter who finished in 9th place with a time of 22:05. “The girls ran fearlessly by getting out hard and showed a lot of guts and determination to finish strong despite being really uncomfortable. Emmalee stepped up for us with her best race of the season. Like the guys, this varsity team is inexperienced so I’m really impressed by their growth in each meet.”

The Indians will be in action next at Centerville on Tuesday.