On a cool Saturday morning last week, Coppell was missing some key runners on the starting line. 

At the Lovejoy XC Fall Festival at Myers Park in McKinney, runners were ready to go. As they were getting close to the district championship, it was 7:30 and ready to race. 

The plan coming into last weekend was to rest in preparation for the Hoka/McNeil Invitational on Saturday at 7:30 a.m. at Old Settlers Park in Round Rock. 

“This course that we are running this weekend is the state championship course,” Coppell coach Landon Wren said. “I wanted to rest a lot of our guys and girls, only starting one varsity elite guy and four varsity elite girls.”

Starting senior runner Pranav Vegiraju this week, he put up a 15:43.1 performance placing him 14th in the varsity elite category.

“Pranav ran OK last week,” Wren said. “We were mainly focusing on technique, trying to learn whatever we could about the race for this week.”

On the girls side, sophomore runner Maya Easterwood ran a 17:16.5 placing second yet again to Denton Braswell junior and state champion Macy Wingard by about seven seconds.

“She ran great this week again,” Wren said. “Obviously she got second again but we really wanted to learn new things which we were able to do and will take action next race.” 

With most of the higher level runners out, many JV and freshman runners had the opportunity to step up. 

“They never know when their number can be called,” Wren said. “I need them to be ready for everything and this week was a good chance to run them with the varsity runners.

This week in Round Rock, Wren expects his team to be loaded, ready to go. 

“Obviously if we are going to rest we will rest,” Wren said. “But if everyone is coming ready to go, there is no holding back. It is do or die.” 

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