Girl’s Cross Country Places 12th at State

This weekend, for the first time in 27 years, the UHS girls cross-country team and made it to the state meet.

Our exciting experience on the road to state began two weeks earlier at the regional race on UHS’s home course, Orchard downs. We had a great race as a team and won the regional title, beating Champaign Centennial by 14 points. This was not the only thing we had to do if we wanted to make it to state though; we still had to get a top five team finish at sectionals.

On Halloween morning, the girl’s team headed to Decatur Hickory Point Golf Course for the sectional race. The golf course was covered in mud which made it hard to run fast times. But we pulled it together with Senior Zita Hubler who was the first finisher for our team in 19:48 for the three mile course. We finished in a fifth place tie with Champaign Centennial and both teams advanced to the sate meet in Peoria the following Saturday.

On the morning of Friday, November 6 we headed up to Peoria in rental vans to the course at Detwiler Park. We headed to the place where they sold sweatshirts, sweatpants and other state paraphernalia. The place tried to rob us out of all our money with everything being so expensive. Marissa, Zita and I finally decided on what we wanted then the three of us went on a long journey to find the rest of the team

While Coach Hunt went to the coaches meeting, the girls and Coach Breit went on a jog of the course and did some strides. We put up our tent, which kept trying to blow away; making it really difficult to complete the task and a great photo op for Coach Hunt. In the end we got the tent up, and hoped it wouldn’t blow away in the night.

Then it was back in the vans and we headed to Morton, Illinois, which was about 20 minutes from the course. At the hotel we showered and got ready to eat dinner at Avanti’s. Everywhere we went in Peoria we saw other Cross- Country teams; at the restaurant, at the movie theater, on the road and at the hotel.

After dinner, where we saw about seven or eight cross-country teams, we went to go see the movie. The food was great and ate so much of Avanti’s famous bread that I though I might turn into a loaf of bread. Then we went to see Where the Wild Things Are. It was a sad and interesting movie and left me a little sad. Finally it was time to head back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.

In the morning we talked, for what seemed to be forever, about which of our many uniform options to wear. We finally decided what to wear and packed up our luggage and headed to the course while jamming to Taylor Swift and The Back Eyed Peas.

We arrived at our tent, which was standing, much to our surprise. We chilled at the tent while listening to Party in the USA and The Eye of the Tiger. Finally it was time to warm up and head to the start line.

At exactly 11:00 a.m. the gun went off for the start of the Class 2A girls State Finals Cross-Country meet. It was a great feeling to know that we were running with the top teams and top runners in the state. Our whole team finished the 3 mile course in under 21:00 minutes, which is a really good time.

Although we didn’t get have a girl place in the top 25, our team placed 12th out of 21 teams. We are all proud of how we did and this will be an experience that none of us will forget. Thanks to all the fans and teachers that have come out to support us in our meets.