New year, new leaders.

With no seniors on this year’s cross country team, underclassmen are forced to step up. 

Many runners have stepped into a leadership role on this year’s team. They lost key runners to rival schools this season. They have worked hard this offseason to prepare for this new year with the new team. 

This year, sophomore Tyler Bass and junior Emily Tinelli are one of the few cross country runners taking positions of leadership. “With Lindsey leaving, along with other key runners, this year it has more been Tyler Bass on the boys side taking leadership and Emily Tinelli taking leadership on the girls side. But it’s mainly Emily,” said junior Alex Christmas, also a member of the cross country team. Although it may sound troublesome on paper, the team is looking forward to the upcoming season. 

In addition to losing a key senior, the team has also lost two important competitors to Bullitt Central, who is their cross-county rival. “Hopefully losing Dalton [Lesher] and Camden [Bohannon] won’t have much of an effect on us, we’re still just as strong and determined as we were last year,” said junior runner Stephen Redmon. 

The team has been working extra hard to fill the void of past players, and with that, practice get a little harder. Because cross country is a fall sport, the team practices during summer and throughout the early months of fall, resulting in excruciating heat. “Training is very hard. I hate it. But the show must go on,” said Christmas. Training is more than just melting in the heat, the runners have to consider their routine as well. “When being a runner, your body comes first. I used to drink Dr. Pepper almost everyday, but now I drink straight water and fill my body up with carbs and nutrients as much as I can,” said Christmas.

With all these roadblocks being thrown at them, the team remains as level headed as ever as they approach their season. “There’s no real way of preparing for this because once you’re out there, it’s most likely gonna suck one way or another, but the end result and the internal feeling afterwards is what makes it all worth it,”said Christmas.