Cross Country Impresses At Cap 7

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Leesville Road High sophomore Maximus Buico running in the cross country Cap 7 Championship. The Leesville cross country boys team placed third in the district wide competition. (Photo used by permission of Paul Buico)

On Tuesday, October 17, the Leesville Road High cross country team faced off against our district’s best at  the 2017-18 Cap 7 Championship. Leesville’s own cross country team did incredibly well overall with a multiple new personal records set.

The Cap 7 Championship was held in the newly redone Wakemed Soccer Park in Cary, a popular location for many large races.  The race was held under beautiful weather conditions — the coolest and most mild of the season so far.

“The weather was amazing,” said Ian Hixon, one of three male captains of the cross country team and a senior at Leesville.  “We’d been training all through the heat, and let me tell you, it felt great to finally have a day of sixty degree weather.”

Attribute it to the weather, the pressure, or anything else, but many Leesville runners set new personal records at this race. A notable force behind their overall improvement seems to be directly linked to the guiding hand of their respective coaches.

“I would definitely have to thank my coach, Coach Gamble [for my improvement]. He really worked with me and two other girls this season and really pushed us…and we all ended up doing very well. That’s how we ended up getting to race varsity for this race,” said Caroline Comeskey, a member of the cross country team and Leesville freshman. Comeskey broke her previous personal record by roughly forty seconds in the Cap 7 Championship — an astounding improvement for a single race.

The final results of the race reflected Leesville’s improvement. The boys team — originally seeded fourth — finished third place overall while the girls team finished fourth. Though these places don’t seem especially high, it’s worth noting that of the seven teams present, three are among the top ten teams in the state (Broughton,Cardinal Gibbons, and Leesville).

“You know, we’re a fairly young team, and we’ll keep improving. Next week we’ll be looking for regionals and we’re gonna go to states and I’m sure we’ll do fairly well,” said Hixon.

The cross country team is looking forward to the upcoming regional and state championships with high standards and gold in mind.

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