By Brenda Erdahl
Irish cross country runners ended their regular season on Thursday, Oct. 8 at Kimball in a Eden Valley-Watkins-Kimball hosted competition. The meet was the last for junior varsity and junior high runners. Varsity athletes saw the meet as a way to finish strong and improve their seed times and placement in the section meet line up scheduled for this week in Mora.
Because of COVID, the section meet will be the culmination of the season for varsity runners who will strive to earn that esteemed title of State Meet qualifier even though they will not actually get to race at a State Meet.
Because of COVID, the meet, which is usually host to both boys’ and girls’ teams, will be divided into two days, Thursday, Oct. 15 for the boys’ race and Friday, Oct. 16 for the girls’. Additionally, only three teams will be allowed to race at a time so the meets will be broken down into six sessions. Teams will be required to follow a very strict schedule to keep the meet flowing, and only 250 spectators will be allowed on the course during a session.
The top two teams and top eight individuals not from a qualifying team will be considered State Qualifiers and will receive awards in the mail sent to their school. There will not be an awards ceremony.
The Irish boys race at 10:30 a.m. Thursday and the girls race at 12:50 p.m. Friday. Both races will take place at Spring Brook Golf Course in Mora.