As the sun peaks over the horizon on a warm Saturday morning, the Waxahachie Woodhouse Invitational is about to begin. The runners, ready to go. The season, ready to start.
All the summer work, the constant hours running, and waking up early to go running.
Time ticks as the Lake View Camp was set up and ready to go.
The gun sounds off and the runners take off.
“Going into this meet I knew that we had a very good chance of coming out with a victory,” Coppell coach Landon Wren said. “I wanted us to go out, compete, and for my team to show me and themselves what they have been working towards all summer.”
With a dominant performance, the Coppell boys placed five of its nine runners in the top 25 runners with senior Pranav Vegiraju running a 14:59.9 coming in first place for the entire meet. In reference, there were 177 boys runners competing on Saturday.
“I am extremely proud of my guys for going out and competing as if they were midseason in the flow.” Wren said. “We knew that we could come out and perform, and they proved to themselves that they were ready to run. Pranav especially ran a minute faster than any time last year and I am excited to see him run this season.”
The girls fell short at this meet coming in fourth. The Coppell girls placed five runners in the top 50 out of seven. Sophomore Maya Easterwood ran a 17:10.3 which is an unofficial school record to win the meet out of the 137 girls runners in this meet.
“According to my history books, Maya ran the fastest time in Coppell history for a girl and she shocked herself and everyone at the meet with her time,” Wren said. “The girls proved to themselves that they are much better than last year and that they can be extremely good in a few weeks.”
With the first meet of the year in the books, Wren and the entire cross country team feel good about getting ready to go out and compete.
“Next week is going to be fun,” Wren said. “It will be a relay so the team will be ready to have fun before running at Marcus in 2 weeks.”
Coppell runs at Norbuck Park in the Greenhill/Luke’s Locker 6-Mile Relay at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday.
Follow Namir (@namir_awan) and @SidekickSports on X
