MISSOURIAN 2018 FALL CAPSULES: Cross country

Southeast Missourian

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Chaffee

Class 2 District 1

Heartland Conference

Head coach: Travis Calkins

Number of seniors graduated: Two

What are the team's strengths?: Positivity and summer mileage.

What are the team's goals?: Obtain as many all-conference and all-district selections as possible.

How did your team prepare in the offseason?: Ran four times a week during the summer.

Describe your team in three words: Living the dream

Leopold

Class 1 District 1

Head coach: Keenan Kinder

What are the team's strengths?: Determined, focused and a balance between returning leaders and underclassmen with a lot of potential.

What are the team's goals?: To keep improving and expand the program. This is the third year of cross country at Leopold.

How did the team prepare in the offseason?: Ran on their own.

Describe your team in three words: Young, eager, enthusiastic

Oak Ridge

Class 1 District 1

Heartland Conference

Head coach: Kristi Seyer

Assistant coach: Ethan Seyer

Number of seniors graduated: Three

What are the team's strengths?: We have a group of hard-working young people who come out and give their all every day. They always manage to have fun, even on the hard days.

What are the team's goals?: We are hoping to earn a district championship for the third year in a row on the boys' side. We are also working toward a podium spot at state. For the girls, we have a larger team than we've ever had, so we are hoping for good things there also.

Describe your team in three words: Dedicated, young, fun

Perryville

Class 3 District 1

JCAA Conference

Head coach: Shadrick Shafer

Assistant coach: Tim Steffens

Number of seniors graduated: Four

What are the team's strengths?: This is Perryville's third season and we are continuing to grow individually and as a team. The vast majority of our team is comprised of freshmen and sophomores this year, many of whome started running in our middle school program, and that experience has proven key in our training.

What are the team's goals?: To continuously develop, achieve and revise personal goals. We are preparing our athletes with skills that will drive success in all aspects of their future, and a big part of that is individual reflection and goal setting. We push athletes to actively consider what they want to accomplish and to then develop a specific plan to accomplish it.

How did your team prepare in the offseason?: We've been running at 6 a.m. all summer long, piling up mileage and spending time in the weight room focusing on injury prevention.