The crowd lining the grassy levy roared as freshman Logan Hendrix soared to the finish line to take first place. His twin brother, Luke Hendrix, came around the bend thirty seconds later, running past the hordes of Marcus supporters to place second in the 5A Junior Varsity boys’ race at the Marcus I Cross Country Meet on September 3. The JV boys placed first in the meet, while the Varsity boys got placed tenth. The JV girls placed sixth, and Varsity girls placed seventh.

“I think we have a good team that’s going to come around,” Cross Country Coach Steve Telaneus said. “We’re really young and I think it’s going to be a little slower start than it was last year. We’ve got a lot of learning to do.”

Since Telaneus doesn’t allow freshmen to run varsity at the first meet of the season, many freshmen will move up to varsity for the next meet, changing the scope of the team. Stephen Ward, Senior captain on JV, beat his personal record time by 25 seconds this meet. He was moved up to varsity along with the Hendrix twins.

“JV is a lot better than we have been in the past,” Ward said. “We’ve been a lot more focused this year than we have before.”

Senior captain Sean Duffy remained positive about the team, though the varsity boys did not place in the top spots.

“This course [Marcus I] is really good. Especially because it’s the beginning of the season and it’s measuring up to see what we can do at the District course this year,” Duffy said. “It’s a good benchmark race to see where we’re at.”