On Saturday, Coppell cross country competed at the Lubbock Invitational on Saturday at Mae Simmons Park. The boys team won first place, defeating Midland Legacy by 54 points. The girls team placed second, with sophomore Maya Easterwood finishing first overall.

In preparation for the invitational, the team made preparations to run on the multitude of hills on the terrain through hill workouts.

“It is not a flat course and it is not a fast course,” Coppell coach Landon Wren said. “It is a slow course and it is a tough course to run. We have done more hilltop workouts than we have ever done.”

Notable runners include senior Pranav Vegiraju, Grant O’Neal and junior Rohit Kalpathy from the boys team and Easterwood from the girls team.

Vegiraju placed first running a 16:00.4, Kalpathy placed second running a 16:33.8 and O’Neal placed third running a 16:37.6. The Coppell boys had six of the top seven runners.

“I was very pleased with the results,” Wren said. “Comparing this team to where we were a couple of years ago when we made our state run, there’s a lot of similarities to that and we are really close to where that team was.”

Easterwood placed first running 18:05.2, winning over two minutes more than the other runners.

“She won the meet and dominated the game,” Wren said. “She was running by herself most of the time and everybody else was behind her.”

Wren thinks the invitational gives the team a step up as they advance to state.

“We went out there to gain experience on that course,” Wren said. “It’s a tough course and the next time we go out there, we’ll be running for a chance to go to state. I thought it was important that we go out there so we learn as much about the course as we could so we’d have the best chance to qualify for state.”

Coppell runs at the Lovejoy Fall Festival at Myers Park in Mckinney at 7:15 a.m. on Saturday.

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