Central Clarion Wildcats Varsity Cross Country Top Runners Take A Much Needed Break As Others Enjoy Working On Times (Without Competing Against Other Schools) At Brookville Meet

Photo courtesy of Diane Lutz: All four team’s (Brookville, Brockway, Central Clarion and Punxsutawney) seniors were honored – Central Clarion Seniors, Logan Powell, Logan Lutz, Riley Rinker and Logan Meier are right in the middle.

This may be a little different way to open an article, But Central Clarion Wildcats Soccer coach Nicole Oakes, had the most wonderful quote about the photo and its significance. “I do certainly love this photo. I think it really captures the heart of XC runners, all supporting each other; it truly is special!” 

And the meet at Brookville on Tuesday, September 17th was pretty special too.

Coach Oakes shared how the meet fell in to play for the Wildcats. “This meet was an out of conference thing that we set up months ago to fill the whole in our schedule left by our C-L/Clarion Area competition, in the initial schedule this would have been the week we competed against each other. 

“Once upon a time, I taught at Brookville with Dan Murdock and he and Doug Roseman their former head coach were really instrumental in helping Erin and I get started at C-L. 

“Brookville is close to home, they are great competition and they have a nice challenging course, so it just made sense.”

How about the Wildcats’ finish in the races? “All that to say, we really weren’t competing against any of the teams, we were there to get in good runs and work on times for some of our runners. This weekend we are taking a crew of kids up to run the foundations race in Hershey, those eight kids were instrumental in last weekends’ big wins at Commodore Perry so we made the call to have them sit this one out.”

“They are just so competitive in nature, we knew that taking it easy probably would not have occurred. Three big races in one week’s time is too much, when we have our eyes set on an even stronger October.

” We want to keep them healthy.” 

Our Junior High front runners deserve a special recognition with Bryan Anderson (14:19) finishing second and Hannah Love (14:16) third in the girls race, and Jackson Baker (12:06.30) finishing first and Griffin Edmonds (12:46.50) finishing third among the boys. 

There were many more Junior High runners than any of our other weekday meets so we are very proud of their strong showing.” 

(Nice meet, Wildcats!!!! Thanks to Coach Oakes for her summary and to Diane Lutz for her photo!!)