October 28, 2023
XC Men, Women Win Last Chance Meet
Faith took home the top spots in both the men's and women's meets last Saturday in Joplin, MO.
Joplin, MO - The Faith XC teams traveled down to Joplin Missouri for the Ozark Last Chance Meet on Saturday. It was a fun weekend of growing together as a team throughout the long trip as we shared testimonies, played games, and made eggs for breakfast at 6:00 in the morning.
It was a cold and windy morning in Joplin, but at least the rain held off until halfway through the race. Even then, we were thankful the rain was gentle and didn't come pouring down hard until about an hour after the race was over!
The men's 8k and women's 5k both started at 9:00, so it was nice to see some of the lead women on our team running with some of the men and hearing them encourage each other through the first 3 miles of the race. Becca Hulinsky finished first for the Faith women, and also finished in first place overall in the women's 5k! The top 5 in each race received medals, so Becca's 1st place finish, Lydia's 4th, and Elizabeth's 5th place earned them some hardware to bring home.
On the men's side, Ozark has a very fast runner who took the first place spot, but David Loveall ran a great race and finished in 2nd place. Conrad finished in 3rd place and Caleb placed 5th to round out the top 5 medal finishers for the men's race. Everyone competed well and worked hard to win some key matchups between our team and Ozark's team that allowed the Faith teams to take first place in both the women's race and the men's race!
Ozark and Barclay have some very talented runners and we are looking forward to seeing them again at Nationals on 11/10. We celebrated bringing home the team plaques Saturday night but will be focused this week on preparing for our final race at Nationals and some very tough competition from several teams coming together from across the United States as we run in Warsaw, Indiana. Thank you for your prayers and encouragement, it is much appreciated!
