The cross country team has been on an uphill spiral since the beginning of the season.

The varsity boys finished 2nd overall at the Riverside Invitational meet, with top finishers, junior Nathan Veal placing 9th, junior Trevor Witherspoon placing 11th, and senior Hugo Mares placing 15th.

The team ran at a meet on Sept. 15 at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee and also competed at the 30th annual Chile Pepper Cross Country Festival in Fayetteville, AR on Sept. 22. At the Chile Pepper meet, the boys finished 23rd out of the 66 school teams. The team also beat the previous school record of personal best finishers, which included Ryan McLaughlin, Witherspoon, Thomas Harbison, Aiden Jones and Tanner Little.

As a team, the cross country boys won their first meet of the season with 36 points at Little Axe Invitational on Sept. 29.

“It was a hard course to run, but it was fun having everyone on the team there,” McLaughlin said.

At the Little Axe meet, McLaughlin led the boys team by running a 18:25 and Witherspoon running a 18:40, just shy of his personal record of 18:30. McLaughlin came first in the 4A division while Witherspoon was right behind him coming in second place.

“For our next meets I want to work harder and get 30 seconds faster,” Witherspoon said.

This was their last meet leading up to the Oct. 13 OSSAA regional qualifier in Enid and state meet on Oct. 20 at Shawnee.