Forney boys win Poteet's "Run The Farm"

The final tune-up before the district meet turned out to be a good experience for the Forney boys’ cross country team Saturday at the Mesquite Poteet “Run The Farm” Invitational. The Forney coach elected to put the guys in the 5A division instead of the 4A and under. After all was said and done, Class 4A Forney turned out to be the top team in the 5A division in front of schools like Dallas Jesuit, Plano East and Rowlett. District foe and host team Poteet finished in 5th place.

Individually, Josh had another good performance finishing 4th overall with a time of 16.22 for the 5k course. At the same meet last year, Josh ran a 16:59 and then came back two weeks later at the district meet on the same course and ran a 16:41. This year’s district meet will once again be held on the same course at Samuel Farm in two weeks on Oct. 31st. Josh is wanting to break the 16 minute mark and if the course will dry out between now and then, he has a good chance of doing it. By the way, the winning time Saturday was a 16:02 ran by a kid from Cleburne who Josh ran against last year in track. He will more than likely see the kid again at the regional cross country meet on Nov. 7th.

As mention, the district meet is coming up after an open week this coming weekend. Forney has a very realistic shot at winning the district title for the first time in Josh’s high school career after coming in second place the last three years. If that happens, it will be the first Forney team in any sport to win an outright district title since moving up to Class 4A about six or seven years ago. Individually, Josh is really wanting to win the district title to go along with his 1600m and 3200m titles from track last spring.

As always, we will let you know what happens.

Until next time…

Nike South lives up to its billing

Well Joshua can now say he has ran against the best high school cross country runners in the state after competing Saturday morning at the Nike South Invitational held at The Woodlands just north of Houston. All the rain that moved through the DFW area on Thursday and Friday moved through the Houston area Friday afternoon and as a result, the course was very muddy. It was not raining during the meet and the temperature was ideal for runners in the high 50s.

Over all, the mud made for slower times than last year’s results, but never the less, there were some very fast times. Josh finished in 28th place with a time of 17:08 for the 5k. The winning time was a 15:35 turned in by the second ranked runner in the state, Craig Lutz of Lewisville Marcus. Josh ran against him earlier this year at the Southlake meet and the results were about the same. Lutz is a junior this year and he missed most of the track season last year with a stress fracture. Officially, there were 147 runners in the Elite High School division so to finish 28th was not too bad. Had Forney ran in the Regular High School division, Josh’s time would have got him third place.

As far as the team results, Forney placed 10th out of 21 teams. There were only four 4A teams in the Elite division with most of the teams being from 5A schools. The winning team was a 4A school from Boerne Champion. They are the defending 4A state champions in cross country and have all of their top seven runners back this year. In fact all seven of their runners finished in front of Josh. Their seventh runner was only 1.8 seconds in front of Josh.

Despite the course conditions, Josh said after the race, “This is my favorite course. I would love to run it again when it is dry.” The experience was a very good one for Josh and his teammates. It showed them how much they need to work over the next few weeks to get ready to compete in the post season meets. They have one more regular meet coming up Saturday in Mesquite. They will run at the Mesquite Poteet “Run The Farm” at Samuell Farm just east of Mesquite on Highway 80. This will also be the site of the district meet on October 31st. Josh ran very well last year on the Samuell Farm course and is expecting to run even better this year.

As always, we will let you know what happens. Hopefully the rainy weather will move out this week and dry things up around here. Over the last month, we have had over 12 inches of rain. Looking at the forecast, it doesn’t look very promising for a dry track Saturday.

I have attached a picture of Josh with all the mud on him after Saturday’s race.

Until next time…

Josh takes 1st at Rockwall Sting

After a week off nursing a sprain ankle, Josh came out Saturday morning at the Rockwall Sting Cross Country Invitational and for the second time this year came away with first place. He was a second off of his personal record with a time of 16:06 for the 5k course. His friend and teammate, Tommy McIntire, finished with him and took second. It was really hard to tell who won because the two finished the race with their hands together and over their heads. They gave Josh first and Tommy second. Josh did lead for most of the race.

The two got the idea after one of their teammates from last year who is running at Angelo State. Angelo State ran in Denton Friday night and a couple of the Angelo runners crossed the finish line hand in hand. Josh and Tommy had decided that if they were close enough and no one was close to catching them that they would do the same and they did. Third place was 12 seconds behind them.

To give you an idea of how much Josh has improved in a year, on the same course last year, Josh took fifth with a time of 18:06…a two minute improvement. The winning time last year was 17:22.

You would think a team with the top two finishers would take the team title, but Forney got nosed out by Rowlett by two points. Rowlett had 35 points to Forney’s 37.

This coming Saturday, Josh and his teammates will be running in one of the premiere cross country meets in the state at the Nike South Invitational held at The Woodlands. This meet is considered a preview of the State cross country meet. Don’t be surprised if Josh runs his best time ever and not finish in the top 20. There will be a lot of great runners there. As always, we will let you know how things go.

We did have our first home visit with a college coach Friday night. The coach from Sam Houston State was at the house for about an hour and a half. He is a younger guy and seems to be very down to earth. His main focus was on getting Josh an education first and then using running to help pay for it. We were impressed with him.

Until next time…