In the sport of cross country, positive progress can, at times, be tricky to measure.
A harrier could run a slower time in a smaller meet and go home with a medal because of a lack of strong competition. That same runner could be improving her times week by week, but because of the number of quality entrants, finish without any hardware.
Malcolm’s Lena Schmidt is living that battle. For the second week in a row, the Clippers’ top runner finished outside the list of medal winners. Yet, Schmidt turned in her fastest time of the season as she ran 23:11 while placing 24th in the Sept. 24 Bob Hoyer Invite at Branched Oak Lake. The race started with 82 girls from 20 area high schools.
“This is what makes cross country so difficult,” Malcolm Coach Brie Walklin said. “You have kids who are making some good improvements, but, if we aren’t careful, that improvement gets overshadowed by medals and scores.
“Lena is a strong runner with a lot of potential. My hope is she stays positive and doesn’t let any of that take up space in her head. She just needs to stay focused on getting faster and more aggressive and the rest will take care of itself.”
As the team was battling illness, only four Malcolm girls competed in the varsity race. The Clippers were 12th in the team competition with 188 points. Scotus Central Catholic won the meet with 29 points while Aurora scored 31.
Taking 30 seconds of his time from the previous week, Cameron Schumacher was the first of the Malcolm boys to cross the finish line with his 53rd place finish in 19:55. Eli Kinkaid finished eight seconds later to place 56th.
“After missing a week of running due to a foot injury, Cameron is doing very well,” Walklin said. “He is progressing a little bit faster than I thought he would. Now we need to focus on getting both him and Eli a little faster.”
The Malcolm boys were 12th out of 18 full teams with 259 points. With 41 points, Syracuse ran away with the team title.
The Clippers were scheduled to visit the Kearney Country Club on Sept. 30 for the annual UNK Invitational.
“This is a big meet we circle every year,” Walklin said. “It’s a chance for our athletes to get a taste of the state meet course. We’re hopeful it won’t be the last trip to Kearney this year.”
