This year, the boys cross country team is making extraordinary strides in terms of records and team wins. On Oct. 14, they won the Southwest Prairie Conference and on Oct. 22 they won the Illinois High School Association regional competition. The entire varsity top seven earned All-Conference Honors, including Camyn Viger, Dylan Maloney, Ethan Reynoso, B.J. Sorg, Owen O’Shea, Gavin Borger, and Jack Wright.

The team is currently ranked first place in state and sixth nationally.

“We have won every invitational except for Nike Twilight in Indiana, which we went up against number one in the United States,” said head cross country coach of 17 years Jason Crowe. In this particular meet, they placed third. The top seven runners from last year’s season have returned and they are stronger than ever. Those runners include Viger, Maloney, Sorg, Reynoso, Wright, Borger, and O’Shea.

Assistant coach John Thompsen says the team is at the level it is now “because its members made the decision to run year round.” The team practices in both the summer and the winter.
“By the time we are in a week with competition, the physical work to be done in preparation has already been [accomplished],” Thompsen said.

Senior runner Brian Sorg is just one of the members who thinks his dedication and passion guides victory.

“Even if I’m not running I feel like the actions that I do benefit my running,” Sorg said.

Sorg takes on a leadership role among his teammates as well.

“I look up to B.J. [Brian] Sorg [and] his dedication to the team; he made sure I stayed on task,” said sophomore runner Dylan Maloney.

According to the team, it takes a lot of mental and physical training to run long distances and make the times they do.

“We are training not to make racing easy, but to make the hard part of racing easier to handle. You also have to be mentally tough enough to endure adversity and handle things not going according to plan,” Thompsen said, who has been the assistant coach for four years.

This year’s emphasis encourages a team strategy over individual accomplishments.

“I feel teamwork has a lot of part in the running. I feel a lot of the time, you think of running as an individual thing, but just this weekend for example, we had a race, and our strategy going into it wasn’t to run super fast or to go crazy, it was just to run together,” Sorg said.

With the best cross country team ranking in Plainfield South history, the boys hold on to their goals as the end of the season approaches.

Viger said his goal for the season is to, “get the team to first in state.” He also plans to break his own time of 14 minutes and 22 seconds in the three mile run.
The state tournament is Nov. 5, and according to the team, they are working their hardest right now.

“A lot of our seniors had to really commit this season, and in the sport you have to commit to running long miles every single day in any type of weather,” said senior Louis DeAlba.
So what is the recipe for a possible state championship? Thompsen hints it includes selflessness and mind-set.

“You learn what you are truly capable of when your mind and body work in tandem for your personal goals. When you add teammates who share the same dreams and goals and aren’t selfish in those pursuits, you get excellence,” Thompsen said.

Sectionals is set to take place Saturday, Oct. 29.