A challenging course at the Greiner Family Cross Country Course in Stillwater, Okla. brought close finishes on Sept. 26 for Coppell cross country. 

The girls placed 16th out of 41 overall. Junior Maya Easterwood placed first out of 389 runners in the Large School Girls 5K Division with her 17:56.4 time.

Younger faces also got to shine at this meet.

“We’ve got a number of freshmen that have been doing very well,” Coppell coach Landon Wren said.

Freshman Finleigh Sanders-Burke finished with a 21:14.0 and freshman Anusha Patki finished with a 21:14.5. They had the second and third highest times respectively for Coppell.

On the boys side, Coppell placed ninth out of 44 teams overall. Junior Diego Morales was the top finisher in the Large School Boys 5K and placed 42nd overall with a time of 16:50.2. Other Coppell boys runners include sophomore Sidharth Kerthipati with a 17:10.9, junior Tanish Neelapu with a 17:20.2 and senior Rohit Kalpathy with a 17:21.2.

“I was really pleased with the boys because most of our boys that we were counting on for district were within 38 seconds of one another,” Wren said. “I want the guys finishing as close together as possible. That’s what we’ve been talking about, and I think for the first time this year we really did a good job of that.”

Despite this, the difficulty of the course made it a challenging race.

“It was a beautiful course, well maintained, but there were lots of hills on it, which made it really challenging,” Wren said. “So our times overall weren’t as great as some of the other meets we’ve run.”

However, Wren is confident Coppell can continue improving and advance to regionals.

”If we run like we’re capable of running, we can get that third spot,” Wren said. “We’ve got a few injuries here and there, but we’re starting to get healthier.”

The first District 5-6A meet is Oct. 10 at North Lake Parks in Denton.

“Our goal is to qualify for regionals from district,” Wren said. “The ultimate goal is always to win a district championship, but the secondary goal is to qualify.”

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