It’s a good thing the times for Saturday’s cross country meet in Southlake didn’t include transportation as the team’s bus ran into mechanical issues, leading to a last minute call to parents, and a possible mental obstacle for runners.

“We had to overcome a bit of a barrier with the bus breaking down on the way to the meet,” boys’ head coach Robbie Thayer said. “All of our athletes were able to get there on time for their race but mentally obviously it was a little bit of a hurdle we had to get over.”

At first, some team members such as sophomore Mac Sedwick weren’t sure if they would make it to the meet at all.

“I felt it kinda jerk a little bit and then I was like “uh oh” and then we started slowing down, the coach got us to the side of the road but we made it work,” Sedwick said. “I thought we were going to miss our meet but fortunately we didn’t.”

But that’s not to say the transportation trouble didn’t have an impact.

“For me personally I got there after the elite groups ran and before the varsity was about to start,” Thayer said. “Even then I was still dealing with bus issues and transportation issues so it was tough for even the coaching staff I think to be fully invested in the meet and our athletes so trying to juggle both of those was pretty tough.”

Although neither the boys’ nor the girls’ team finished in the top 15 at a meet that featured some of the top 5A and 6A programs, as well as school from Arkansas, Thayer said the team performed close to previous meets despite the change in transportation.

“Looking at the results, obviously I’ve seen the kids compete and they did really well,” Thayer said. “The times are very equivalent to what we’ve done the past couple meets so even though we had that bit of a hurdle we had to get over the kids stepped up and worked really hard.”