Arcadia-Loup City Cross Country Two boys and one girl get to state
The 2020 Arcadia-Loup XC team was able to fight through a relatively tough year of training and injuries to finish the season strong. At the District D-5 meet, both the boys and girls found themselves in contention to qualify for state and they were able to get boys Ty Greenland and Jarrod Gappa and Jessi Heyen in the girl’s race to state.
“It was a difficult year to navigate,” A-LC head coach Kyle Knaub said. “Since we couldn’t meet as a team for most of the summer, the kids were on their own in the middle of the pandemic to prepare for the season, and for most kids, other things were more important at the time”
On the girl’s side, the team had a lot of varsity runners, including Colleen Fulton who they had to replace. Jessica Heyen did a good job of stepping up as a leader and by districts, the team was much more competitive. At district, they finished fifth with 47 points, seven points behind Hi-Line who took the final state spot.
“We lost a lot of our girls team to graduation last year and there were a lot of questions marks on how they would perform, it was very encouraging to see them push forward in that situation and be in contention for a state spot, even though they fell short there was a lot of growth to get to where they were,” Knaub said. “We are looking forward to Jessica Heyen leading the team next year and having the ladies be a lot stronger.”
The boys also came up just short by tying for fourth place with 39 points at districts. Sandhills Valley took the third spot with 33 points.
“The boy’s team had a lot of growth this season,” Knaub said. “We had struggled a lot in our conference meets since I had taken over nine years ago. To rise up and finish in second place was a great feeling, unfortunately, our team had to deal with a very tough district. Us and Southwest who tied with us for fourth both would have had a strong chance of finishing in the top ten teams at the state meet.”
Coach Knaub is looking forward to next season and is very excited to see what the team can do with the talent they will be returning.
“I felt bad, because COVID-19 really limited what we were able to do, and I felt like we weren’t able to present our program in it’s best light. Hopefully, next season when we can get all our traditions back in the fold, we can drive our programs forward for both our girls and boy’s teams.”