Lady Cardinals Add To Trophy Case

The cross country state championships took place last Saturday at Eagle Island State Park in the Treasure Valley.  The Soda Springs Cardinals qualified both their boys and girls teams for the state races.  The girls came into the championship race off of winning yet another district title and one of the favorites to take the top spot at state.  Meanwhile the boys team entered state as the district runner ups being considered a bit of an underdog team at the state championships.

As race day dawned the athletes and spectators were treated to a typical Idaho fall day.  With the weather fluctuating throughout the week the course was wet with some slick spots.  Despite the less than ideal conditions the runners went for it and left it all on the course.

The Cardinal men’s team consisted of seven of their top runners.  All seven runners turned in sub nineteen minute times with two of them finishing in the top twenty earning a medal.  Unfortunately, the Cardinal men just missed out on winning a trophy finishing in fifth place.  The state awards trophies to the top four teams.  The Cardinals only missed the fourth place trophy by a single point.  The fifth district as a whole had great representation at state with all three teams from our district placing in the top five.  The brightside for the Cardinals is the fact that they only graduate one senior so they will return a great core of experienced runners to next year’s team and will undoubtedly make another run at state.

As for the Lady Cardinals, the race for the 3A state championship became a two horse race with the Ririe Bulldogs.  Every other team would be competing for third behind these two powerful teams.  All season the Bulldogs have been able to just top the Cardinals and unfortunately last Saturday Ririe bested Soda Springs once again in a tight race.  Even with having to settle for a second place trophy the Cardinals were still a force to be reckoned with as four of their girls finished in the top twenty.  Unlike the boys team the girls team is full of upperclassmen.  The Lady Cardinals will graduate four of their top five runners.  Those that will return next season will be joined by some younger girls and will be back for another shot at adding more hardware to the trophy case.

This year’s teams proved that even though participation in the sport may be down locally the coaching and determination by the athletes are keeping a Soda Springs staple alive and well.