For Pratt High cross country coach Kathy Hitz, this season of cross country will be largely unfamiliar.
For starters, of her 21 runners, 11 are new to the team, with seven of the newcomers joining as incoming freshmen. On top of that, like all Pratt sports, the cross country team will face a brand new league that nobody knows a whole lot about.
“We’re anxious to see how we stack up against them,” Hitz said.
Joining the Central Kansas League will bring a fair amount of competition to the table. Last season, new league foes Lyons and Sterling both sent their boys teams to State in 3A, with Lyons placing fourth and Sterling placing eighth. In addition, Hesston’s team went to State in 4A, placing 11th.
On the girls side of things, no teams from the new CKL went to State in cross country. The highest league finisher as an individual was Pratt’s Cheyenne Becker, who placed second in the 4A meet with a time of 15:26.42. The junior then injured her ACL playing basketball over the winter, but is back with the team and even recovered quickly enough to place in the 3200 meter at the State track meet in the spring.
Anchoring the boys side of the team is junior Mario Perez, who also ran at State in cross country last season. He will try to lead a young group of boys that finished fourth in their regional last year.
“Boys finished fourth at regionals, and girls finished fifth, with the top three teams making State,” Hitz said. “So we missed that by not a whole lot.”
Pratt will host one meet during the season, on September 30.
With so much youth on the team, expectations for the team are cautiously optimistic, but with their top two runners from last season making their mark as sophomores, this team knows that even younger runners can vastly help the team.
The PHS cross country team opens their season on Saturday, Sept. 4, in Hoisington.
