On Sept. 26th the West High hosted their boy’s cross country invitational at Ashton cross country course. Despite some weather issues and delays, the boys successfully managed to take the meet with a near-perfect score of 17.
The meet started out with weather issues as harsh rain postponed some of the races. After the rain stopped, the racers got ready to run. West claimed seven of the top ten places winning handily at their home invitational meet. Head coach of the boys cross country team Josh Kidman commented on the victory.
“At your home meet you always want to race well, and I think those guys that are seniors and are juniors have raced there before and [they] know the course and are familiar with the competition that was there,” Kidman said.
The times started with Moustafa Tiea ‘25 taking home a time of 16:35 in first. Michael Lee ‘24 came in second followed by Brice Wahe ‘25 with times of 17:37 and 17:40 respectively. Praneel Rastogi ‘26, Sam Showers ‘25, and Robert Stong ‘24 took places five through seven and Cade Benson ‘24 took ninth.
Not only was this victory successful for the team, but it was also a successful trial run for the state qualifying meet that will be run on Oct. 17. This meet helped to ensure that the distances were measured correctly and it successfully placed the boys team in the top 20 in the state. It also helped get top West runner Moustafa Tiea into the state rankings as he is currently ranked at number nine.
“Well, this year we’re gonna actually host a state qualifying meet and so getting to host the home meet before, you know you’re kind of running through how it’s going to be in a postseason meet. You want everything to run smoothly,” Kidman said.
Despite these victories, this isn’t the final meet the team will be having here. Although the team had great times here, it’s yet to be known if they can keep this momentum into the end of the season, however with a top state runner and an impressive lineup the future for the cross country team is looking bright.
“So we’re kind of all looking to use all the training that we’ve [had], all the miles we’ve collected, all the workouts we’ve done, and just have a big push so we can be state qualifiers here,” Kidman said.
