The MSMS Cross Country Team charged into the season in its second meet of the year on Saturday morning, September 23, at Amory High School.

Kendall Wells, a senior at MSMS, has been running cross country for four years and has been involved with the MSMS Cross Country team during both her junior and senior years. Wells commented on last week’s meet saying, “The Saltillo meet was very large with many competitors. The MSMS team did well considering our team is pretty small.”

Although the results from the Amory meet will not be released until later this week, Wells felt confident that MSMS placed first or second based on the runners’ performances. Wells shared that “David Thaggard, Landon Alexander, and Mariana Strawn all received t-shirts for being one of the Top 15 runners.”

TIMES

“One of the team’s goals is to reduce our race times by at least 2-3 minutes before the big State Championship in November,” Wells said.  

The team has already improved since its first meet in Saltillo the previous weekend. The team is filled with both returning seniors and new juniors and displays a range of experience.

Mariana Strawn has been running cross country for the entirety of high school at both Ocean Springs High School and MSMS and now serves as the female captain for the MSMS Cross Country team.

Strawn expressed her enthusiasm for the season by saying, “MSMS has had a great performance this year! Both teams gave it their all in this past meet, and I’m very proud of them. Everyone has been improving with each meet and it’s very exciting to see where we will go from here.”

“Over the remainder of the season, we will continue training with track workouts and long distance runs. As the season progresses, these workouts will most likely increase in difficulty as the team gets stronger. The meets will also help in giving some of the newer runners more experience,” Strawn continued. 

The team’s next meet will take place on September 30 at Tupelo Christian Preparatory School.