Cycling team displays impressive showcase at state

Although it may not be as popular as other fall sports, Westside’s cycling team has consistently dominated year-after-year. This year the team impressively won both the boys and girls varsity cycling state championships. Coach Nathan Moseley says that the team was fairly small and very relaxed this year.

“The cycling team consisted of 18 kids participating in the races,” Moseley said. “Twenty-two kids were in the club, but only 18 completed. It was pretty lowkey.”

One of the reasons that many people don’t know about the sport is that the school doesn’t sponsor it. Moseley wishes that Westside will one day sponsor the sport so that the team will become even more dominant.

“Because it is not a sanctioned sport, there is not necessarily the support yet from the school standpoint as far as facilities and equipment,”Moseley said.  “We practice when we can. We usually go to Tranquility Park which is not too far from here.”

As far as the meets go, cycling races comes pretty close to the style of cross-country races, with a little twist.

“They are division races, there are the varsity and JV divisions. The varsity team, both guys and girls, go off but do more laps than the JV team. As for cross-country, you run the same length whether you are varsity or JV. It is still the same idea. You go out on your own and you can win individual medals or the entire team can win, that part is similar to cross-country.

Another difference, compared to cross-country, is that there isn’t a state championship meet. The state champion is crowned on accumulative points throughout the season.

“Cross-country has a state championship meet, whereas in cycling you just add up all the points over the course of the season, and then the state champion is crowned based on those points,” Moseley said.

According to Moseley, the team has been successful because of their natural talent.

“We just have a lot of good racers for every race. We won the varsity boys, varsity girls, JV boys, and came in seconds for the JV girls.”

If you are looking to join the cycling team next fall, you can contact coach Moseley.