2019 XC Crosses the Finish Line at least for us

Well it was a great season, had some ups and downs but recovered nicely the last quarter of the season.  A recap of the season for Sampson -

All Buckeye 8
All-OVAC
All-District
District All-Academic

In addition to these his team won:

Belmont County Championship
OVAC 4A
Buckeye 8
OVCCL
Martins Ferry Invite

He qualified for the regional for the second year in a row along with his team, and this year he did much better.  Last year he got 81st and was a little overwhelmed at the race.  This year he got 52nd and it wasn't his best race, but it was pouring down the rain and we had talked before about the worse the conditions were the better it was for him if he was going to have any chance to make it.  The bad things is I don't think it was better for his team.  He ended up running a 17:35 in 50° weather with the rain pouring at the start of the race.  He actually beat 2 kids that he hadn't beat this year so that was good, and one of the kids it was their first year and I don't think they had ever run in those conditions.  Last year it was about the same, real sloppy course and bad weather, but this year all of the races had been dry and warm and if a kid hadn't run it that before they were in for a rude awaking.  Sophie was like "I hope it stops raining" and I was like "I hope it pours for the next 18 minutes to give him a chance".  Alas there were still enough kids who were prepared and talented enough that they held him off.  I thought he ran a good race given the circumstances and cross country is a funny sport in that it is rare something could come up and change the place you should finish.  You could run an amazing time that is just way above anything you have run, but that is usually because of your training, and maybe tapering and having everything hit just right.  By the time you are a junior in high school this is probably less likely and it isn't like other sports were you can keep the score close and throw a hail Mary at the end or have a stud pitcher that other teams can't hit, or just shoot lights out behind the arc in a basketball game.  No in cross country you can pretty well figure out where your team is going to finish before you go into the race.  I had his team at about 13, well they finished 15, but like I said the conditions were good for him, and maybe one other guy, but the other 3 guys not so much.  It should help them next year to at least be prepared for this, but I know Sampson wants more.  We had the team banquet and as soon as we came home he was trying to figure out what he had to do to get to State.  I told him about 500 miles between May and August.  We'll see.  I just hope he is able to go into the season healthy next year and have a good last season.  I hope all the boys can be healthy.  This year we had a knee injury kind of take out our number 2 guy, plus a kid on the team got bit by a tick over the summer and ended up with Lyme's disease.  So hopefully next summer goes better.  Anyway a link below to the video from coach's husband.