Mother Nature didn’t make it easy, but she cooperated just enough on Thursday to allow the Stratford Cross Country teams to repeat as champions of district 17-6A. After a six-hour lightning and rain delay, the Spartans got to work and achieved a clean sweep in all divisions. The course at Nottingham Park was soggy and the air was warm and sticky, but it didn’t prevent our athletes from earning team titles in the varsity boys, varsity girls, JV boys, JV girls, and freshman boys divisions. Four runners earned gold medals as individual district champions and 13 Spartan athletes in total made it on the podium.

The district meet was a good first step in our varsity teams' quest to earn their way to the state XC meet and to battle it out with the best programs in class 6A. However, the next step in achieving that goal is the Region III- 6A meet on Monday, October 25th at Kate Barr Ross Park in Huntsville. The top four teams in the girls and boys races will advance to the state meet in Round Rock on November 6th.

Varsity girls

In cross country, a perfect team score is achieved when five of a team’s seven runners win the first five places in the race. The Stratford girls achieved a perfect score of 15 points on Thursday and had all seven girls in the top-10 overall. Finishing second and third and also advancing to the Regional meet were Memorial (74 points) and Cy-Fair (91 points).

Sophomore Anastasia Sciretti looked strong the entire race on her way to becoming the district champion with a 5k time of 19:25. Sophomore Allie Weinhardt cruised to second-place overall with a time of 19:42, and junior Siena Yoder joined Anastasia and Allie on the podium with her third-place finish and a time of 19:51. Junior Maggie Pearce was fourth overall, sophomore Niamh Collins was fifth, freshman Allison Goodwin was ninth, and junior Megan Broom was tenth. There were 50 runners in the varsity girls race.

Varsity boys

Although the boys' margin of victory was not as wide as the girls’ was, they won all three spots on the podium and had all seven runners finish in the top-25 out of the field of 47. Stratford advances to the Regional meet with a score of 31 points, as does Memorial with 64 points and Cypress Creek with 79 points.

Senior Emanuel Galdino repeated as district champion with a 5k time 15:37, junior Maddox Durnell was second-place overall in 16:05, and sophomore David Kalwahali was third in 16:08. Senior Zach Tobin was 12th place, freshman Ben Pearce 13th, sophomore Daylan Rushing 14th, and junior Jackson Potter 25th. 

Sub-Varsity

Sophomore Amelia Bommer continued her great season by taking first place in the JV girls two-mile race with a winning time of 13:03, and junior Mary Mitchell won the third place medal in 13:34. Sophomore Emily Hopkins was 5th, sophomore Mary Donnell was 13th, junior Paige Dial was 16th, freshman Angelina Salel was 34th, and freshman Ashley Brunson was 52nd. The JV girls won the team title with 37 points, followed by Memorial with 51 and Cy-Fair with 54.

In the JV boys race, sophomore Jonathan Lumpkin raced to second-place overall in 18:08, and sophomore Jean Choi was third in 18:12. Juniors Jacob Smith and Justin Kaimann finished top-10 with Jacob in sixth and Justin in ninth. Sophomore Ben Barrett was 19th, sophomore Jona Morford was 22nd, senior Fernando Mejia was 30th, sophomore Fred Kunick was 53rd, and sophomore Jacob Hare was 67th.

Stratford was able to capture the team championship with 34 points, thanks in huge part to gutsy performances by several guys over the last 400 meters of the race. Memorial was second with 37 points and Jersey Village was third with 68. 

Nathan Hirst blazed his way to the district championship win in the freshman boys two-mile race with a time of 10:41. Samuel Jordan was second in 11:40, and Brody James earned the third place medal in 11:45. Andrew Hopkins was only one second behind his teammate to take fourth, Nate Yoder was tenth, Ethan Shuck was 11th. The freshman boys easily won the team competition with 20 points, followed by Memorial with 53, and Cy-Fair with 57.  

The district cross country meet represented the final race of the season for the majority of the Stratford runners, and each and every one of them is to be praised for how hard they have worked to achieve their individual goals and to help the program achieve tremendous success. The cross-country season unofficially starts in June with practices that begin before sunrise and continue until the varsity’s season is completed. To achieve the high standards and lofty goals that Coach Siemers expects of his team, it requires an incredible amount of self-discipline and willpower to put in the work week in and week out. These kids have a strong bond and have put in the work, but there is more work to be done for our varsity teams in Huntsville on the 25th. The entire Spartan team will be behind them.