Goddard, KS — Goddard, KS 9/22/23 Goddard XC Invitational Lake Afton Link to race results: https://bit.ly/GHSXC2023 On September 21, 2023 Goddard Cross Country competed in their 4th meet of the 2023 season on our home course Lake Afton! Practice this week the Lions had the opportunity to run out at Afton on the Middle school course in preparation as well as running the big hill and around the start/finish area. It turned out to be a very nice day for the Lions with a little humidity, but excellent cloud coverage with an occasional sprinkle. This was a historic day for the Lions with so many positives to take away from this meet! We did not have as many runners improve this week as we would have liked, but we had a lot of excellent performances yesterday! Highlights: 1. Our Varsity Boys team won the meet and took 1st place!!! Goddard has not had a team win a Cross Country meet in 15+ years! A historic accomplishment and a testament to this group of runners! Personally Coach Andrews was recognized today by the Kansas State High School Activities Association for this accomplishment. A very proud moment for our program! 2. Olivia Brownell had a 5th place finish in the girls varsity race!! 3. We had 6 individuals medal yesterday! Unfortunately we did not have medals for the JV runners, but Adeline and Hudson would have received a medal! 4. We had 2 runners PR Yesterday! 5. Our JV Girls team took 2nd place as a team! 6. Our JV Boys team took 4th place as a team! 7. For 8 of our runners this was the 1st 5k they had ran this season! 8. 5 runners ran faster yesterday than Buhler on a tougher course! Lions you should all be very proud of your performances yesterday. I know some individuals were disappointed in their times, but always remember the big picture. We want to run our absolute best at the end of the season! There will be bumps and valleys as our season goes on, but know us coaches are proud of everyone for giving their absolute best! Thank you parents and everyone for all their help yesterday running our home meet! It was an excellent day and the meet ran smoothly. It takes a lot of effort to run a Cross Country meet and we did it! Next week we look to Halstead! Halstead will be ran on Wedgewood Golf Course where historically the Lions have ran a lot of PR's/Good times! We will look to be competitive next week and improve upon Lake Afton! GO LIONS! Blake Andrews/Coach Ford