New Faces Impact Grace XC Teams

The Grace cross country season kicked off last week when the Grizzlies made the trip to Malad to take part in the Terry Jones Invitational.  The boys team competed against eleven other schools, all of them being 3A or larger, with the exception of Rockland.  Although, as a team, Grace finished in tenth place they were able to edge out the aforementioned Bulldogs who have been their biggest district competition over the past few seasons.  They also saw some great times for the first race of the season.  The boys team was led by Adrian Mejia and Brock Johnson.  Both boys are just starting their junior season but are already seasoned veterans having ran varsity for the boys team last year.  Jonah Wilkerson is another experienced runner for the Grizzlies and finished as the fourth member of the Grace team.  That brings us to some new faces for the Grizzlies.  Colt Coleman is also a junior and is a newcomer to Grace High School.  His family has recently moved to the Grace area and he along with his sister Cally are both running for the Grizzlies this season.  Colt finished the race as the third fastest Grizzly, helping Grace in the team scoring.  Laexin VanGass is a senior and is also a first time cross country runner.  Laexin and his family are back in Grace after spending his junior year in North Carolina.  Rounding out the boy’s team last week were two more new faces to the team.  Freshman Cutler Andersen is new to the high school team but has been running on the junior high team for three years.  Lastly is sophomore Scottie Heer who decided to switch over to cross country from football this year.

Like the boys team the girls team is a mix of experienced Grace runners and new team members.  As a team the girls placed an impressive fifth out of ten teams.  The aforementioned Cally Coleman took the top spot for the Lady Grizzlies and placed fifth amongst all runners.  Cally, the senior, is joined by Kallie Stoddard, a junior as newcomers to the team.  Unlike Coleman, Stoddard has always been a Grizzly but is new this year to the cross country team.  Lily Gilbert, Breanna Heer and Hayden Ball are all experienced runners for the girls team and will look to continue to build on their past success.  

All of the Grizzly runners will be in action again this week when they run in the Cardinal Classic in Soda Springs.  Watch for next week's story on that great race and all of the local runners results.

Boys Results

Adrian Mejia 17:48.62

Brock Johnson 18:52.00

Colt Coleman 19:10.0

Jonah Wilkerson 20:00.00

Laexin VanGass 21:08.00

Cutler Andersen 23:16.00

Scottie Heer 25:28.00   

Girls Results

Cally Coleman 20:36.00

Kallie Stoddard 22:06.00

Lilly Gilbert 22:07.00

Breanna Heer 23:45.00

Hayden Ball 26:30.00