The Elmira cross country team competed in their second meet of the season at the Stayton XC Invitational on Saturday.
The meet took place at the Stayton Middle School Nature Trails, a course that proved to be challenging for the athletes. Part of this challenge came from the race’s unusual course, requiring runners to traverse steep banks and cross a small creek.
The difficulty of the race resulted in only two athletes putting up an improved time this season, junior William Uphold and senior Jude Spencer. Their times were 22:49 and 23:44, respectively.
Spencer was proud of how he did.
“It feels good. I actually improved by quite a bit,” he said. “It was definitely more difficult, but definitely not the hardest meet we’ve done.”
The other 5K varsity runners were junior Jude Carman with 19:35, sophomore Jake VanDamme with 20:37, ninth-grader Thaddius Mason with 21:54, junior JT Myers with 27:10, and sophomore Hannah Yaskovic with 28:23.
Foreign exchange junior Mariana Stoqui ran her first race with the team of the season, competing in the 3K JV race, but there are no results currently posted.
Stoqui enjoyed her first competition.
“I like it. It’s exhausting, but it’s good,” she said. “The path was fun.”
This was also the first meet of the season for two fall-sport athletes VanDamme and Myers. VanDamme is also a soccer player and Myers plays for the JV football team.
“It sometimes feels like a challenge,” VanDamme told Falcon News. “But it’s fun to be with both of the teams and hang out with different people.”
The Falcons run their next meet at the Country Fair Classic on Thursday at the Oregon Country Fairgrounds in Veneta. Races start at 4 p.m.
Carman said he is looking forward to the next meet.
“It’s going to be flat and wide. It’s going to be fun because it’ll be fast,” Carman said. “Stayton had hills and was narrow. You got stuck behind people. This one should be easier than the last one.”
