BEST YET TO COME

Whitley County Cross Country Coach David Lennon is excited about the upcoming season. The program begins its third year under Lennon. The Colonels have a good mix of experience and youth.

“We are young with five freshmen, but they had a lot of success as middle school runners,” Lennon said. “In fact at the end of their season they ran varsity for me in the region.”

“We have a nice mix of older kids. We have two seniors with Brian Berta and Brent Logan. Berta has been with me from day one and we are in our third year. He has come a long way,” Lennon said.

“Logan joined the team last year and had a lot of success. He competed in the state cross-country meet last year. We have big hopes for him and he has great leadership skills. He and Berta both provide tremendous leadership to our young kids and they fit the tone for practice.”

“We even have some younger kids. We have a seventh grader that is running and he ran as a sixth grader last year. He is getting is feet on the ground and is getting better,” Lennon said.

“We feel like we are going to be pretty good this year with the help of several newcomers,” Lennon added.

Lennon has a good mix of competitions for his team. They will have several meets as well as several invitational meets. “Our season starts August 25 in the Pulaski County Roll Back the Entry Fee Meet at the G.E. Park. It gives everybody a chance to see what they’ve got before the season really gets going.”

“We will do a lot of invitational meets because I want to expose these kids to some good competition and prepare them for the region. It is important of them to see some of the top level teams and let them see where they are, where they need to be and as the season goes along you can see them respond favorably,” he said.

“When they have been to a big meet they will come in and work harder because they have seen the better teams in the state,” Lennon said.

“The first year I was careful in how I scheduled. I didn’t want to beat them down, but last year I got a little tougher and this year we are going to have a tougher schedule,” Lennon said. “We are going to Lexington a couple times and we will go to some of the bigger meets. The Wayne County Invitational is nice and the Pulaski County Invitational. The Southern Harrier Classic in Somerset is good meet with a lot of top quality competition, but we like to compete against the local teams too.”

“Williamsburg and Corbin have great programs and we will run several times with them,” Lennon said. “We will run in Corbin and John Harris (Williamsburg) will run out here. We like to compete against each other because it is a great local rivalry. We are getting now were we can compete. We had a lot of success when we first started out and we are looking for more this year.”

Whitley County is in the largest class in cross country and competes in Region 7 with Clay County, Clark County, Lincoln County, Madison Central, Montgomery County, North Laurel, Pulaski County, South Laurel and Southwestern. “Last year we finished seventh in the region and I was pleased with that until I started looking at the scores and saw how close we were to going to the state as a team,” Lennon said.

“I think with a little individual improvement from my top five runners we can compete for one of those spots in the state as a team,” he said. “Once again it comes to leadership and that first year we didn’t have any leadership and that is no slam to those guys that ran. They didn’t know because they were just getting started. But, as our program has grown and we’re developing these runners and getting more leadership and that’s what it is going to take. Our seniors need to take control of this team and step up. I look for great things from these two seniors and I think we can compete for one of those slots this year.”

Aug. 25            Roll Back Invitational

Sep.  11            at Corbin

Sep.  15            Southern Harrier Classic

Sep.  25            at Pulaski Co.

Sep.  27            at Wayne Co.

Oct.    2            Bell Co. Invitational

Oct.    4            Wayne Co. Invitational

Oct.    9            Southwestern

Oct.   13            Pulaski Co. Invitational

Oct.   23            at Somerset

Oct.   27            Meet of Champions

Schedule subject to change