Huskies XC team battles but falls to CV and Carlisle

By Kenny Varner Jr.
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Updated: September 26, 2023

Courtesy of Neil Breneman
58 degrees and cloudy conditions set the stage for a great race as the Mifflin County Lady Huskies Cross Country team battled it out in a home meet against Cumberland Valley and Carlisle. The competition was strong and proved to be too much for the Huskies as they lost to Cumberland Valley, 45-18, and to Carlisle, 35-20.

Even though the teams we faced tonight did not have big numbers, they had strong talent up front and a good core in the middle that was too much for our team to overcome. I told our girls if we were to have a chance for the team to win, they would need to be aggressive and run hard, even run the race of their lives. And you know what? They did just that!

I couldn’t be more proud of how they performed tonight making massive improvements to their individual times. In fact, I am not sure we have ever experienced this. Out of our 10 girls able to run tonight, 9 of them had season bests. Of those, 5 of them were career personal records (PR’s), some of them major! The most significant career PR’s was Cameran Shuey by 2:46 and Kahlen McCracken by 1:51. Also posting PR’s tonight was Ava Kratzer, Caroline Palopoli, and Mary Kanagy.

We could talk about several factors that resulted in such significant improvements like the cooler Fall temperatures and running against strong competition. The fact is, however, that these girls get the credit for putting in the hard training and sticking with a hard regimen of running day in and day out. The work they are putting in is paying off. This week we also worked on building their mental skills and developing continued confidence in themselves.

As we move toward October we are getting closer to championship season. This is when we really want to see their hard work pay off. The team travels this weekend to compete at the Carlisle Invitational on Saturday, a course where many of them previously held PR’s.

Scoring for the Lady Huskies:

Amilia Coffey- 21:23

Ava Kratzer- 22:48

Alexis Anderson- 24:27

Mary Kanagy- 24:43

Caroline Palopoli- 24:46