The cross country program is the most successful sports program at Holy Trinity, with the boys and girls teams each winning eight state championships since 2002. With a relatively young team and few returning runners, both teams returned to the state finals this year, after success at districts and regionals.

The boys team placed 13th out of 32 teams at state, which was not the finish they hoped for, but the future of this team over the next couple of years seems to be looking good. “We are all a group of tenth graders and we don’t have any seniors, so we aren’t losing anybody and so it’s looking really good for us next year and even better our senior year,” Zack Gunderson said. 

The girls team, which is made up of some seventh and eighth graders along with some sophomores placed 16th out of 32 teams at state. “Both teams are still young and for where they are and doing what they did at state was a great accomplishment,” Coach Marc Bailey said. 

Both teams trained every day in the early morning to achieve the results they got. The team hit their stride at districts where the boy’s team finished runner up and four of the boys ran their personal best time. “Sophomore Zack Gunderson ran a minute faster and sophomore Skylar Jensen also ran a minute faster, which is a phenomenal thing for a 5K,” Bailey said. 

Since there is no longer a cross country course on campus there are no home meets, but the team does not seem to be affected by this. “They put up a fence that separates the lot from the school which keeps us from accessing our full course,” said Bailey. “But we are working on a plan to bring one back. It would be better to have some home meets and of course, you want to compete at home,  but the program is still doing great,” he said. This is Coach Bailey’s third year of coaching the cross country team. 

Next year, Bailey said, “I anticipate both teams making it back to state again for the third year in a row and competing even better, and another year down the road when our boys are seniors we are going to try to win it, and that’s our goal, to win the whole thing.”