“The boys team is pretty much running as individuals,” Carson explained. “We have a team, but we’ve lost a lot. With pay to play, our numbers are down, so basically we’re setting goals individually.”
The boys’ team only has seven members, making it hard to compete at bigger meets with so few people on the team.
The Trojans are also fairly young with no seniors on the team. There are five juniors, one freshman and one sophomore with two of those juniors running the best of the group.
“Our top two are Kyle Luccasen and Matt Burchfield,” Carson said.
Luccasen’s brother, Koby, is the freshman on the team. The other runners include Daniel Evans, Max Frisch, Ryan Stroup and Trent Taylor.
The girls’ team is having similar problems in terms of getting a big group of runners. They do have one more than the boys’ team and have also had some success at the smaller meets that they have run at.
Carson said that the top two on the girls’ team are senior Dana Jones and junior Jamie Thomas. Jones is flanked by fellow senior Kenliegh Howard while Thomas has a classmate in Ashley Keith.
The other four members of the team — Baili Kleinman, Brooklyn Reese, Demi Renfro and Mary Carson — are all sophomores.
“The girls are doing pretty well as a team,” Carson said. “They finished second at (the) Bethel (Invitational) on Saturday. They compete better at the medium to smaller meets. At the bigger meets, they tend to be more middle of the pack.”
The silver lining in it all is that with cross country while individual success can fuel team success, you do not need team success to excel as an individual.
Carson is optimistic about her teams’ prospects going forward into the post season.
“I hope that they continue to improve and run their (personal records),” she said. “They have run well individually at times. We go to Harrison and St. X coming, which are bigger meets, but if we can set some individual goals and hopefully accomplish those.”
Carson is hoping that Thomas can keep improving her times and even advance out of districts.
“Hopefully, we’ll have a couple people up towards the top,” she said. “And I think I have one girl (Thomas) who has a shot to get out of districts.”
The Trojans have one month left in their regular season before the District meet on Oct. 20.