The eerie silence of nerves and anticipation ended with the shot of a gun.

“I was feeling good [when the gun went off] because I have been waiting for three years to break 20 and I knew today in my brain I was going to do it,” junior and varsity cross country runner Charlotte Long said.

Long’s intuition was right; along with placing eighth, she ran a new personal record (PR) of 19:57. Also beating their PRs, senior Tyler Brothers placed 6th with a 16:13.9 time and senior Luke Oyster came in 13th place with a PR of 16:28.5. While projections put the womens’ team in 19th and the mens’ in 12th, both teams placed seventh.

“It felt really good to see all the hard work pay off. My goal was to have a good race and be happy with my results,” Oyster said. “My finish felt really good and I was very pleased when I saw the time on the clock.”

In his fourth time racing at Freedom Hill, Brothers was also ready for his hard work to pay off. This time the course’s renowned hill was removed, creating a mostly flat race.

“We’ve been running hard courses all season and it felt good to just run fast and not worry about any hills that I had to climb up,” Brothers said.

Another motivator for Brothers and Long was the pack of other competing runners they stuck with. This strategy kept their pace on track. 

“I stayed with a bunch of Oxford girls, and I was kind of boxed in their pack,” Long said. “And that really helped me to stay on pace because if I dropped off, I would be alone.”

Nevertheless, when it came time for the finish they sprinted off with a kick. 

“The hardest part of the race was the last half mile because that was the part that hurt the most,” Brothers said. “And I was scared of people passing me.”

They hope to achieve their goal of competing at state’s by stretching, rolling, logging sleep, and focusing at practice. Their team’s support is the most important factor, though, according to coach Julie Sinning. 

“They’re working on a team attitude, a team mentality that no one’s going to get better without the rest of the team pushing behind them,” Sinning said. “They need to encourage each other and that doesn’t happen just at meets. It happens all season long.”