Sports editor
It’s always nice to have a good finish during the regular season.
However, if a cross country runner doesn’t do well during sub-state, it’s all over.
No matter what happened during the regular season, qualifying for the state tournament all depends on Saturday’s meet.
There are no records or seeding like volleyball. Instead a runner must finish in the top-10 at sub-state to advance.
In reality a runner doesn’t have to finish first-through-10th in the field to move on, but must either be part of one of the top-three overall teams, or a top-10 runner from a team that fails to qualify for state.
MHS has three former-state qualifiers on the roster in Camille Christensen, Ryan Jones, and Louis Holt.
Christensen qualified in 2006, while Jones and Holt were at state this past season.
At the 2007 3A state boys’ meet, the final medalist (20th place) had a time of 18:08, and both Jones and Holt have broken that time this season.
The 20th-place finisher at the girls’ meet came in at 17:03 in the 4k race.
Christensen is the only Warrior girl to break that time with a 16:52 finish during the first meet of the year at Abilene.
Jaclyn DeForest was just 22 seconds off Sept. 25 at Marion.
In other words, Marion has runners on the roster who can compete at state, however, just making it there comes down to a do-or-die race Saturday.
The girls’ race begins at 2:30 p.m. with the boys’ following at 3 p.m