The student news site of McNeil High School

The Trailblazer

The student news site of McNeil High School

The Trailblazer

The student news site of McNeil High School

The Trailblazer

Girls’ Cross Country Dominates Early Meets of the Season

Senior+Abby+Carine+competes+in+Cedar+Park+Invitational
Image by Kelley Starnes
Senior Abby Carine competes in Cedar Park Invitational

Girls’ cross country has attended four meets and a team relay consisting of three girls. Even before school started, juniors Amelia McElhinney, Megan Pellicani and Zoe Punske took first place at the Burnet Cross Country relay meet.

“We have really stepped up our training; we run more miles and work harder than ever at practice,” Punske said. “We are more serious than ever before and are working hard to take the program to new levels. We have a lot of talent in all our grades, so we’re fully prepared for any challenges.”

McNeil has had a history of hard working girls’ cross country teams and this year is no exception.The girls run outside the school in the mornings and have cross country as a class first period. There are only three returning senior girls on varsity, but one of them, Brianna Timourian, is injured and cannot run. Although Timourian has been a valuable part of the team, it hasn’t stopped the girls from doing their best.

“This year a rule was changed saying that all varsity girl races would be required to be 3.1 miles instead of 2 as it has always been, so that makes our races quite a bit more difficult and require more training,” junior Thea Dombkowski said. “Our team is mostly juniors though, which is good because it means our team should be strong next year as well.”

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The Waco Midway Invitational took place on Sept. 7, where both varsity and junior varsity teams won first. The meet at St. Andrew’s High School took place in Austin on Sept. 15. Both teams took second place.

“At our meet in Waco, five of our runners were in the top 15 and medaled,” Dombkowski said. “Our second meet, we got second behind Westlake who is ranked No. 7 in the state, and three of our girls got top 10 and medaled.”
The Cedar Park Invitational took place on Sept. 22 where junior varsity took second and varsity placed third, keeping many of their meet results in the top three.

The McNeil Invitational was on Oct. 6, where varsity took seventh out of 34 competing high schools.

“McNeil Invitational is actually one of the largest high school meets in the nation, Adidas sponsors it and we usually have some former Olympians and big athletes come,” Dombkowski said. “It’s also hosted at the same place as the state meet so a lot of people come because of that as well.”

Doing well at the McNeil Invitational was a good practice for the state competition.

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