On Saturday, the Girls XC team took a short trip to the Sparta Invitational at Fruitridge Hayrides. In the two earliest races of the day, they competed well as a group. In the first race, Kaisa Maki led the group with a strong 1:46 improvement from her time the weekend before. Sophia Sinnema was next, followed by three season best performances from Shelly Zimmerman, Cyan Minnich, and Baylee Johnson. In the second race, Abby Noorman and Addy Nesbitt led the charge with some of the top competition from our new conference. They both finished with season best performances - Abby moving to #14 on the sophomore all-time list and Addy moving to #13 on the all-time freshmen list. Kendall Nester had a strong performance, followed by season best times from Miriam Hess and Kenzie Druce to round out the scorers. This was Miriam's first time breaking 22:00 in her career! She was followed by four season best efforts from Lucy Hotz, Kylynn Grala, Amaya Gomez, and Claire O'Brien. The opportunity for an early morning race after a warm week of training was a great opportunity to gauge where the team is at for mid-September. This week, they race at home at 5:25pm on Wednesday for the first RCA Jamboree and then the two girls races on Saturday for the home invite are at 9:15am and 10:20am. Kaisa and Maddie will be honored following the last race for their senior walk as the only two seniors in the entire program.