Concordia’s Boys Cross Country team finished 2nd at the TAPPS 6A District 4 Cross Country meet on Thursday, Oct. 21st at Spring Creek Park in Tomball.
There were a total of19 boys running between the varsity and JV races for the morning, and all nine of the varsity runners placed in the top 25 earning medals. At one point in the varsity race, Assistant Coach Ryan Everitt ’12 shared: “The first group went out pretty fast, but the guys look good.”
The Boys team features a good blend of experience and youth: the nine runners in the varsity race included two seniors, two juniors, one sophomore, and four freshmen.
Scoring: Concordia boys varsity finished with 53 points and St. Thomas finished as District Champions, halving the Crusaders total with 26 points. However, Concordia is starting to close the gap on St. Thomas.
In 2019, Concordia finished last (6th place) at the district meet with a total of 160 points. The highest finishers that year were Ben G. (then a Sophomore) in 28th and Will K. (also a Sophomore) in 31st. St. Thomas won with a score of 22 points as their top 7 runners were in the top 12.
In 2020, St. Thomas again won the district meet with a low score of 15 points, while Concordia had 65 points (almost 100 points less than the previous year). St. Thomas literally ran away with the district title with the top 5 finishers, 6 of the top 7 runners, and all 7 of their runners in the top 10. Concordia’s Will K. (then a Junior) was the first Crusader to cross the line in 8th.
This year, Will K. (Sr.) shaved off almost 2 minutes of his 2020 district time, finishing in 16:24.27 earning 2nd place. Matthew K. (Jr.) also dropped almost 2 minutes from 2020 and moved up 4 positions to finish in 9th place with a time of 17:24.27. Ben G. (Sr.) dropped one and half minutes from 2020 and moved up 3 positions to finish 11th place with a time of 18:00.71. Both Matt K. and Ben G. managed to eclipse a St. Thomas Eagle runner on last stretch of the race, dropping those runners to finish 10th and 12th, which was crucial to narrowing the scoring total gap.
(Points are awarded based on the placement of each team’s top 5 runners, and points can be taken away by team’s 6th and 7th runners finishing ahead of other teams top 5).
Head Coach, Dr. Eric Oblinger, shared this about the district race: “All year we talked about District and State being the races that mattered and we considered the rest to be training. The boys ran their best at every season race. However, they really upped their game for district. The week prior, we talked about what it meant to “Run like a Champion Today”. We also discussed focusing on “what we were going to” rather than “what we were going through”. The boys took all of this to heart and ran like absolute Champions at district! From the moment they started, it was clear that this was going to be a different race. Their confidence and determination were evident in every aspect of their race.”
Next up for the boys is a trip to Waco for the TAPPS 6A State Cross Country Meet on Monday, November 1st, at the Cottonwood Creek Golf Course. In 2019 the boys team finished 18th and in 2020, the team leaped 10 spots to crack the Top 10 with a 9th place finish.