Northview Cross Country Team Beats the Odds

By Morgan King

staff writer

Photo courtesy of Barb Musser

On October 29, Northview’s best cross country runners competed at the regional meet at Allendale High School. While both the boys and girls ran their best, it was the girls team that really stepped up. The underdogs were ranked quite low before the meet and were not expected to make the state requirement. The girls were underestimated because no one factored in their true grit, according to Coach Wojciakowski.

Cross Country meets are scored by taking the top 5 runners added. The top 5 Northview runners were sophomore Brenna Musser, senior Isabelle Luke*, senior Rosemary Harms, sophomore Haley Denton, and senior Ashley Helmer. These 5 girls beat the odds and scored 167 points to pull out an 8th place finish out of 14 teams.

Musser and Luke made All Conference and Denton received an honorable mention. Other accomplishments in this particular meet included PR’s (personal records) by Musser, who dropped 21 seconds from her previous best, and Luke, who dropped 33 seconds from her previous best. “One of the things that was said that day was ‘leave it all out on the course’ and that's exactly what we did,” Musser said, who was projected to place 26th but finished 12th.

Both Musser and Luke, who finished 14th, are now moving on to state. Only the top 15 finishers move on, so Luke just pushed hard enough to made the cut. “The girls chose to work hard in the race and I am very proud of their efforts,” coach Wojciakowski said. The State meet will take place on Saturday, November 5 and while the girls don't know how they're expected to place this time around, they aren't going to let that factor into how well they perform. “You can do anything you set your mind to,” is the only thing Musser is going to have on her mind going into the state meet. [*Disclaimer: Isabelle Luke is a co-editor in chief of this publication but was not involved in the decision, interviews or writing of this article.]

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