The women's cross country team competed at the Lavern Gibson Championship XC course on September 30. The meet is unique for high school cross country as it does not start until the evening and is intentionally done so athletes can experience a "night under the lights" to compete on a cross country course. This year's event featured 3400 high school athletes competing 8 races. The Greyhounds started the evening with their JV team competing and winning the team title in the open division race. The team was led by top finisher, SO Sadie Foley, making a return to racing from injury. Foley finished second overall with a time of 19:09. The Greyhounds challenged the field throughout the second half of their races and climbed to the top team position through those efforts. FR Annabelle Inman (17th) finished in 20:36, FR Maija Gilhooly (24th) finished in 20:44, SO Maddie Cox (26th) finished in 20:45, JR Brianna Roper (41st) finished in 21:06, FR Malia Larger (45th) finished in 21:11 and SO Lilliana Cate (52nd) finished in 21:18 to wrap up the team's scoring. The team saw quite a few strong performances throughout the lineup. Athletes took advantage of a cool evening and a deep field of competition to really shine at this event. The squad finished with 93 points outdistancing second place, Zionsville, by 41 points. There were 54 competing teams in the Open Division. The women's varsity team competed in the Race of Champions division that started at 9:10 p.m. The field was filled with highly accomplished individual runners as well as very good teams. It was a great opportunity for the team to compete on the state meet course against the best teams in Indiana along with some very good teams from Illinois and Ohio. The team was led by FR Annabel Pollert (37th) in 18:57. JR Nola Elling (42nd) had a tremendous race finishing strong in the final kilometer to finish in 19:01. FR Larkin Taylor (50th) continued to be great competitor to finish in 19:05. SR Audrey Ricketts (61st) has put together a few strong races of late and finished in 19:12. JR Olivia Mundt (64th) continues to be steady and reliable finishing in 19:13. SR Emersyn Weaver (75th) finished in 19:18 and JR Charlotte Konow (84th) finished in 19:27 to wrap up the Greyhound scorers. JR Katy Dascoli (104th) in 19:40), SR Cara Naas (130th) in 19:57, and SR Kara Wenzler (171st) in 20:21 also competed for the Greyhounds in this division. The team placed 7th overall out of 44 teams. This team continues to grow and find the strength to compete to their best ability through all 5 kilometers. Tonight was a great opportunity to learn and grow. We look forward to return trip to this course and several of the same competing teams at the end of October for the IHSAA State Championships. All race results can be found: https://www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/meet/221573/info