The LHS Boys and Girls Cross Country Teams recently made history by both winning state championships. It’s the only time that boys and girls teams from LHS have won state at the same time.
Girls Team
The girls team had 12 athletes on the team. Two of them recently shared about their experiences this fall.
Freshman Adele Olson said she progressed in her running this year and had a lot of fun with her teammates. “I enjoyed the long runs with everyone this year. And winning state – this is something I have worked for forever!” she said. At the state meet in November, Olson had a 50-second PR (personal record).
Brooke Perry, a Senior, described her season as awesome and exciting, with her favorite part winning state. She got second place in individual results. The other thing Perry loved this year was getting to know the girls on the team.
How exciting was winning state? Perry said she didn’t find out right away; she was on the podium for her individual award when the interviewer asked how she felt about the team winning, and then said La Grande girls had won.
The other La Grande athlete who placed in the top 10 individual finishers was Lindsey Brown, who placed third.
What advice does Perry have for future LHS runners? “Find out your why for running, why you love it. That helps you push through when times get hard because running is a hard sport and it gets boring at times. Also, remember to build up your teammates.”
Boys Team
This is the first state championship ever for LHS Boys Cross Country. The boys’ team had 21 athletes. We caught up with Senior Josef Simonis and Freshman Cooper Altenburg.
Simonis struggled with several injuries last summer and said going into the season was not where he wanted to be, but he was able to improve. This year, he said he had the most fun with his teammates. Leading up to the state meet, he had been sick for several weeks, but felt good at the meet and really pushed through the last 800 meters.
Simonis said it was very exciting to win state. “Being a senior, I have been dreaming of this since my freshman year, so it felt amazing.”
Altenburg said he had a good first season of high school cross country running, had a lot of PRs and a lot of fun with the team. He said that during practice, the teammates push each other so they can all get better. Before the state meet, Altenburg said he was trying to get into the zone, picturing the race and different outcomes. In the field of 100 runners, Altenburg ran with teammate Caden May and said he would choose one runner, pass them and just keep doing that. “It was a pretty cool feeling when we found out we won.”
Altenburg finished third in individual results, May was fourth.
Both Simonis and Altenburg said when the team was driving to Eugene for the meet, they had high hopes and were prepared to go out and do the best they could and winning would be a bonus.
Simonis said “I can definitely see this program getting bigger and a lot of talent coming into it. It’s been pretty awesome to see the team progress and grow, and it will be pretty neat to be part of the legacy.”
LHS Cross Country Coaches are Alma Crow, Jesse Simonis and Rachel Maszk.
