UPDATE: Cross Country team has strong finishes at meet

Fresh out of a fourth place finish at state, the boys cross country team has a new challenge ahead of them: the Cross Country Coaches National Youth Championships in Kentucky. The team was approached by a running club based in Kansas City called the Brokaw Blazers to compete in the meet, and now four runners are competing in the meet on Nov. 21.

“Their coach is someone who we met at a camp in Colorado during the summer that was their club camp and we had a chance to learn a lot of really good things from them,” Easton said. “That coach has followed up with us through the season and watched our progress, so we’re excited.”

The runners competing are seniors Jakob Phillips, Alec Reilly, Abdi Abdinasir and junior Milo Greder. To prepare for the meet, the runners have been doing workouts similar to what they would do in the regular season with Easton, as well as running on their own. A noteworthy addition to their workouts is a self-made meet they set up with Millard West runners and other schools that happened on Saturday.

“A little over a week ago I was talking to Josh Klein (A Millard West runner) and he asked if me and some of our guys would be interested in running an all out 5k on the track Saturday Nov. 7th,” Phillips said. “[…] We asked our coach how it fit into our training schedule and he said it worked out perfectly.”

The meet ended up having 18 participants, with Greder finishing fourth as the top runner for Westside. With a tune-up meet under their belt, the four man team leaves Nov. 19 for Kansas City to meet with Brokaw, then drive to Kentucky for the race on Saturday. Good luck Warriors!

UPDATE: After the meet Saturday Nov. 25, the Warriors had a great showing. Junior Milo Greder ran in the 15-16 yr. age group and placed third out of 90 runners. In the 17-18 yr. age group seniors Abdi Abdinasir, Alec Reilly and Jakob Phillips placed 10th, 12th and 23rd respectively out of 61 runners. With this being the first national meet for any of the runners, the team had a new perspective on races.

“The experience was awesome,” Greder said. “Running against new runners that we have never seen or ran against was very fun and different because we didn’t know where we were going to place.”

From here, Greder and Reilly still have one more meet at the Foot Locker Cross Country Regionals, which can qualify them for the national Foot Locker race. Here, they will be running against the best runners in the midwest, similar to the meet in Kentucky. Great job Warriors and good luck Milo and Alec!