On Thursday, October 15, the Westside cross country team competed in their district meet at Pioneers Park in Lincoln. Both the boys and girls teams competed with five other teams across state in an effort to qualify for the State meet on October 23. The top three teams in each district meet would qualify for state as well as the top 15 overall runners.

Despite their first place win in the last meet of the regular season, the boys team would not qualify for state. They would place last of the six teams with Lincoln North Star getting the top spot. Even though five members of the team hit their personal best times at districts, none of them finished in the top 15 individually ending their season.

The girls team would place second in the A-3 district only behind Fremont and would qualify for the state meet. Claire White, Reese Young-Oestman and Noelle Abels would all individually qualify for state, placing first, seventh and twelfth respectively. The girls team looks to continue their depth with both upperclasmen Young-Oestmann and Abels’ experience at state, along with freshman Claire White’s breakout season. Abels, the captain of the girls cross country team, talked about how everyone is preparing for the meet.

“We’re just trying to mentally get into it, we’re taking a down week to rest our bodies,” Abels said. “We’re all pretty positive and excited about it.”

The team will face many of the same teams they’ve competed against all season. Fremont, the team who took first over the girls at districts, as well as Papillion-La Vista South also qualified for the state meet.

“[Papillion-La Vista South] is really, really good and that’s where we want to be,” Abels said. “Fremont [has] a couple girls who we really want to try to run with even though they have faster times than us. If we could get up there [with them] that would be great.

Even though the boys’ season is over, they will continue to support the girls team.

“They’re welcome to come to practice and to [the State meet],” Abels said.

The Class A State Cross Country Meet will take place at Kearney Country Club in Kearney on Friday, October 23. According to Athletic.net, a website used by cross country teams across the state to record training times and meet outcomes, the Fremont girls cross country team is predicted to take first place with the Warriors lining up at tenth. Individually, Claire White is predicted to place fourth. She’s predicted to place below Stella Miner of Marian and Kaylie Crews of Papillion-La Vista South and Alexus Sindelar of Pierce High School. Two of which have beat White in meets throughout the regular season. The girls team looks to continue their season succcess and fight for a chance to take the state title.