The cross country team continued it’s 5-year streak of sending runners to the state meet after much success last weekend at regionals. This year, however, is a bit different. In past years both the girls and boys teams have qualified for state but this year that wasn’t the case. The girls qualified as a team finishing with five runners in the top 10 at the regional meet. The boys did not qualify as a team, although junior Reilly Wiscombe surprised fans and coaches alike with a 2nd place finish and a time of 15:59, the first sub-16 minute 5k the team has seen all year, qualifying him as an individual. Reilly is also the first SMW runner since Jonah Heng (’12) to break 16 minutes.

I talked with Reilly about this achievement and his expectations for the state meet.

“It was really hard, I knew I was going to PR (set a personal record) but I had no idea I was going to break 16,” Wiscombe said,”I didn’t expect to finish that well either or beat Connor McDonald (SMNW’s top runner).”

Reilly is going into this weekend ranked 13th in the state across all classes (2A-6A) and as the 2nd fastest junior behind Blue Valley West’s Stuart McNutt (14:58). He hopes to finish in the top ten. Reilly’s talent coupled with his passion for success will yield great results at Rim Rock this weekend.