Before the rain thundered down Saturday afternoon, Aug. 30, the freshman cross country team stampeded their way to victory ending a winless drought for the team.

“I expected them all to run a good race.” freshman cross country coach Kristen Witt said. “I wanted them to use the things we had worked on in practice like using the downhill, running as a team, running smart and finishing strong.”

The freshman team won the 3k (2.2 mile) race at the Randy Seagrist Invitational with an overall score of 38 beating all other teams in the freshman meet.

“We were successful because each of them ran smart,” Witt said “They all ran to their best potential and each of them charged up the hill at the end.”

The team is made up of 14 members; however, only 11 participated in the race on Saturday. Blake Selm, Kyle Andersen, Andrew Lofgren, Matthew Dixon, and Jack Morgan all scored for the team, while Austin Corteville and Nick Fuss placed sixth and seventh on the team  respectively. All seven of them finished within three minutes of each other.

“We are very deep,” Witt said, “We have many talented runners who are willing to step up and push themselves. This group collectively is very serious about running they get out there and give it their all every day.”

Jack Morgan placed nineteenth, Matthew Dixon tenth, and Andrew Lofgren sixth, while Kyle Andersen took second place, being beat only by Blake Selm who won the meet with a time of 14:02. Selm and Andersen ran together for the majority of the race and only in the last hundred meters did Selm pull away Andersen.

“Having Kyle as a teammate helps me to keep running,” Selm said “Whenever I don’t feel like going on a run he makes me go on a run so I can improve and get better.”

Selm and Andersen, who ran together in middle school, know how beneficial it is to have teammates who compete and push each other.

“Having Blake as a teammate is really good because we are about the same pace,” Andersen said “So when we are running as a pack we can work off each other and push each other.”

“We have to close the gap between our top five runners if we want to continue to be successful,” Witt said “We have to run side-by-side with our teammates and not look back when we are on the home stretch.”

The freshman team’s next meet is the Stan Nelson invitational Saturday September 13.

“The one thing that is going to make this team successful is team work.” Witt said. “We have to run together as a team and continue to work together.”

Already the 2014 freshman team has done something they had not done since 2011: win a meet. The last time a freshman cross country team won a meet was when varsity captains Andrew Osborne, Matt Morgan, and Philip Aden were  freshmen, current Head Coach Kevin John was still the freshman coach, and when the Missouri High School Athletics Association (MSHSAA) Hall-of-Famer Dale Shepard was head coach.