Cross country headed into Thursday’s District 10-5A meet at Warren Park expecting to become district champions, and that’s exactly what they did, sweeping the board with varsity and junior varsity all placing first.

“It’s a great feeling, really fun and inspiring to watch the kids compete and give it their all yesterday,” coach Ben Manning said. “It was semi-expected for the girls and for the boys, it was definitely tougher but they were able to catch who they needed to catch and come out on top.”

Sophomore Dominic Ward ran for boys’ varsity and finished 15th, and was happy to see the end of season meets start off hot.

“It feels pretty great being district champions, we worked all season and battled with injuries and sometimes ran through injuries, so it’s good to see it all culminate into this,” Ward said. “We couldn’t have done it without coach [Khera] Vay, coach Manning pushing us to get better and coach [Anne] Morton helping runners treat their injuries.”

Helping the girls’ varsity dominate Thursday’s meet, freshman Caitlyn Ruback placed 3rd and knew the team had the capability to win it all.

“It’s relieving that our hard work paid off, but we were all confident in winning,” Ruback said. “We knew who to look out for and what times we were going for, so it was just a matter of giving it our all individually.”