On Saturday, Sept. 23, the boys cross country team raced at the Deer Grove East Forest Preserve in Palatine, Ill. for an invitational meet; they placed third with a team total of 170 points. 

St. Xavier came in first place with a team total of 97 points, followed by Mundelein with 159 team points. 

“Overall it was a pretty good race. We were missing our second-fastest runner so other teammates had to step up,” said Colin Yandel, senior team member. “We finished third behind a nationally-ranked team from Tennessee.”

Cross country runs are about five kilometers or 3.1 miles long, and they are usually held in a park or open field. The flatter the course, the more challenging it is, especially in the heat of Saturday’s meet, which reached 95 degrees Fahrenheit.

“[The race] was very exciting. We choose to go to this invitational every year because it’s very competitive,” said Mr. Noah Lawrence, head coach. “We’d been preparing for the heat by not spending a lot of energy on Friday night or Sunday morning. We intentionally choose a team area in the shade, and we encouraged the athletes to lie down and not do much of anything before it was time to warm up for the race.”

 Coach Lawrence encouraged the runners to drink a lot of water, rest up, and enjoy the competition.

“The race was really exciting. It was just extremely hot,” said Matt Kusak, junior team member. “The course is pretty challenging, there is one part where you are entirely exposed to the heat and another part where the run was uphill.”

In the coming days, the boys and girls varsity teams will prepare for the Naperville Twilight Invitational on Wednesday, Oct. 4 at Naperville North High School. Thirty other schools will be participating, so the top seven runners from each team will be the only ones to run.