Girls’ cross country wins conference
Boys’ cross country places fifth
Eighth grader Paxon Myers dashes to overtake Benilde-St. Margaret runner in the last stretch of the race. Myers finished the race with a time of 19:31.
October 9, 2020
As her fifth and final season running cross country came to a close, senior Erin Brousseau said winning the conference was a special way to end even though the season was modified because of COVID-19.
“(Winning conference) was like a testament to how much work we put in the season, regardless of if we even thought we were gonna have a season or kind of how unique it’s been, we worked really hard, and it felt really good to have all the hard work pay off,” Brousseau said.
Throughout the season, Junior Henry Nelson said his teammates encouraged him to be a better athlete and he felt like he had a strong race.
“I really tried to push it really hard today and I feel like it was really worth it,” Nelson said. “The entire team, we all really showed how good we were and pushed ourselves really hard today.”
Head coach Chris Nordstrom said there were a lot of good individual times and he is proud of how both teams ran.
“Girls had a goal to win and they came and they really brought it and ended up winning the conference tidal which was great,” Nordstrom said. “The guys battled Benilde … (they) ran really hard and ran really smart and it was the best we had today.”
Because of COVID-19, Brousseau said the team had to find a way to bridge the gap between teammates in a different way than normal to stay safe.
“We overcame a lot of barriers and we didn’t get to have the same team bonding and social experience we usually do,” Brousseau said. “It’s a lot more team oriented in the past, in terms of pasta parties, team sleepovers and things like that so I think we had to bridge that gap.”
Although COVID-19 has kept him and the team from running his favorite courses, Nelson said there are some positives that have come out of the pandemic.
“I have grown as an athlete and become more patient because of COVID and I’ve worked hard and done the best I could,” Nelson said.
There was always a chance the season could be cut short, according to Nordstrom so he was overall just excited to be able to make it to the conference meet.
“I kept telling everyone you never know if things are going to get shut down because of COVID,” Nordstrom said. “They just kept coming every day, kept having great attitudes, kept being resilient. It is great that we made it through safely to this point, but also a lot of success too.”
