On Saturday, November 1, East Noble’s Boys’ Cross Country team ran their last race of the year at the state competition at Indiana State University. With this State competition being the first time anyone on the team has made it that far into the postseason, they had hopes of breaking into the top 20 in Indiana, and their season times pointed towards reaching that goal. Finishing 24^th, they didn’t reach their goal, but they put East Noble on the map in cross country.

“[Finishing 24^th in the state] is a pretty great feeling, but we could have easily been higher in the rankings if not for injuries. Next year our goal should definitely be top 15 as a team,” commented junior Joe Vandiver.

In the week before State, Noah Acker, a sophomore and one of the top members of the cross country team, injured his ankle but still chose to compete, even though he knew he wouldn’t be able to run at his highest level. “He tried to run, but was nowhere close to his ability and was in decent pain by the end of the race. He chose to run because that is the type of person he is. He could have chosen not to run but toughed it out,” said Mark Liepe, the team’s coach, about Acker’s perseverance. Acker’s determination is one of the many reasons why the team performed as well as they did this year, because all of them have a desire to compete, even if they aren’t 100% healthy.

“The team performed okay, but not great,” continues Liepe. “They were not happy with their performance, we know we are better, but not that day. But we are okay because we know we could return and do better next year if things work out well for us.” Even though the team as a whole didn’t perform as well as they hoped to, Vandiver and junior Phillip Phan each had excellent runs, both setting their personal bests. Vandiver ran a 16:16 race, which is the 9^th best run in East Noble’s history of running the 5K race. Phan’s time was 18:14, which is an impressive time.

While the team didn’t feel that they performed up to their potential on Saturday, they still made the East Noble community proud on their exciting and successful season! Great job to all of the Knight runners!