The season has come to an end for the Travelers Rest High School cross-country team and they have had quite the successful year. This year’s team was coached once again by John King. Both the boys and girls team finished well enough at Upper State and qualify for State. Ever since the teams placed 4th in the boys division and 12th in the girls division last year, the team has been looking forward to this year’s state competition to prove that they are the real deal.

The first stop on their state campaign was region. The cross country team finished region with two top-five finishes. Senior Will Barnett led the boys to their 4th place finish, while sophomore Taylor Reynolds’ 6th place finish help the girls get 3rd in Region. The team is in arguably the hardest region in the state, which made their top five finishes even more impressive. Most of the teams in the region went on to finish in the top-ten in the State.

Coming off their success at region, the cross-country team turned their focus to county next. The boys continued their success  by finishing 9th. Although the girls finished 11th, this placement does show how hard they worked for this race. Even though both teams already knew that  they would be running at Upper State, they wanted to show the rest of the field how fast they are. Senior Will Barnett’s and sophomore Taylor Reynolds’ hard work paid off for both of them as they obtain All-County.

Qualifying for state would be a huge accomplishment for the XC team, but they wanted to make a statement by finishing as high as possible before State. The team practiced tirelessly in the weeks leading up to Upper State, as they wanted to make sure that this was not their last race. Both teams were able to conquer this course and qualify for the State Competition by finishing 5th (girls) and 4th (boys). Coach King called the boys performance “the fastest (he’s) ever had” as the whole team finished under 18 minutes.The girls team did just as impressive as most of the team finish below 22 minutes.

The cross-country team was finally at State and they looked to finish off the season with their best finishes yet. Coach King had some high expectations in this race. He wanted to see senior Will Barnett, senior Logan Childs, and sophomore Taylor Reynolds get All-State honors. He also wanted to see all of his other runners beat their personal best. It was a hard fought race that took almost all morning. Senior Bubba Philpot says “the State course was the hardest out of the four.” In the end the boys took 6th in State, which tied the 2nd highest finish in State yet. They were lead by senior Logan Child who finished 20th overall. The girls tied the school record and finished 7th in the State.  They were led by sophomore Taylor Reynolds as she  went on to make All-State.

It was yet another great year for all the runners at TRHS. Coach King said “the year was very successful since both teams were competitive.” The off-season will be very hard for juniors and underclassmen as they prepare to continue their success next year. There will be many slots that will need to be filled in because this year’s team had the most seniors that TR has ever seen.