Petersburg’s high school cross country team is heading to regions after a strong home meet on Sept. 19.
KFSK’s Taylor Heckart sat down with head coach Kayleigh Lenhard to talk about the season so far. This is Lenhard’s first year as head coach in Petersburg. She was previously an assistant coach at Lathrop High School in Fairbanks for two years.
Lenhard said it’s been a great season for the team, which shrank after multiple seniors graduated this spring.
Listen here:
The Region V Championship meet takes place Sept. 26 in Juneau.
TRANSCRIPT
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Kayleigh Lenhard: We have a pretty small boys team this year. We have had a couple [boys] out for injuries, so right now we only have four who are competing. Then we have six girls who are all a super strong, super tight knit group of girls.
So, girls’ team, we have three juniors, two freshmen, and a senior. And then for boys, we have a senior, two sophomores and a freshman.
So a lot of newcomers, a lot of veterans. It’s quite the mix, I guess.
Taylor Heckart: If I did my math right, you guys have had three meets so far…
Kayleigh Lenhard: We’ve had four. We’ve done Sitka, Klawock, Ketchikan, and then Petersburg.
Taylor Heckart: So, many meets for the team to grow and improve. How have they been doing?
Kayleigh Lenhard: They’ve been doing excellent. The girls, especially, have been super consistent. Every meet they do better, but not just individually, they all do better as a team.
I think that’s just because they’re all so close to one another that, you know, if our top runner is pushing herself a little harder, then our second runner is going to try to catch her, and so on and so forth. So watching them improve not just their own times, but also getting better as a team, is really cool to see.
And then our boys’ team, they’re a smaller team, but they also have some really big goals individually. Even though they’re not winning meets like they used to in previous years, they’re still hitting their goals that they have, and so that’s good to see.
Taylor Heckart: I think I read we lost a lot of really fast boys?
Kayleigh Lenhard: We lost some pretty speedy state champs, so kind of a growing year for the boys. But they’re all up to the challenge, and we have had a lot of progress this year.
Andy Mihai actually is one of them. He had, like, a two minute PR [personal record] from last season’s first race to this season’s first race, just from putting in the work in the summer and doing what he had to do. And so he’s come back top runner on our team. I mean, we have some pretty speedy boys, as just as a team they’re not what they used to be. But that’s there’s room to grow and that’s okay
Taylor Heckart: I am no runner, but two minutes sounds like a lot!
Kayleigh Lenhard: He’s so fast. And now he’s fixed to qualify for state individually, which is really cool because last year he didn’t even go to state.
Taylor Heckart: That is major growth. And this most recent meet was our home meet this last weekend, how was that?
Kayleigh Lenhard: It was so fun. The community, just having everyone around and cheering on the kids, having their friends and family. I could tell that really helped their performance. And going into it, they were just excited to be able to compete at home and be able to have their parents watch them and their friends watch them. So I think it was a really good send off to regions for sure.
Taylor Heckart: Were there any standout performances or really cool moments from this last weekend to highlight?
Kayleigh Lenhard: Yes, I feel like I could go through each individual kid and say a cool moment, but I think probably my favorite moment was Declan Olsen had a 20 second PR. He’s a freshman, first time running as a high schooler, and he’s had like 20 second PRs every meet. He’s just gotten better and better and better. And after this meet, he came up to me with just the biggest smile on his face. He’s like, “Coach, I did it! I can’t wait for next weekend!” And I was like, “That’s what I want to hear from a freshman!” He’s fired up and ready. So that was really cool to see coming from a newer runner that he’s kind of starting to enjoy the sport and seeing that progress.
And then Devyn Flint was another really notable performance. She continues to get faster each meet, and she had a huge PR as well and broke 24 minutes, which I don’t even think she was thinking would happen. So she was really happy.
Just seeing them excited, I think, is what makes me excited too.
Taylor Heckart: Regions is this weekend. How are you feeling about it?
Kayleigh Lenhard: I’m excited. The kids are ready to go. We’ve started tapering. They all have really good mindsets going into this meet.
The girls really want to win the meet, and they have been winning their division the last couple meets, so I think they have the ability to do that. So I’m excited for them.
And same with our boys, they all have some pretty big goals individually, and I think they can do it. They’ve ready to go, so I think we’re all pretty excited.
Taylor Heckart: Talk to me about what those goals look like.
Kayleigh Lenhard: So the girls, they want to take it all. They want to win state. They want to win regions, which they are definitely kind of lined up to do right now. So that’s the girls’ goal.
And I think we talk about team goals and personal goals, and so they all have this goal, together, to win. But then individually, they also want to get personal bests and keep getting faster. It’s going to be a wet weekend, so little resistance training. But I think that they’re ready for the challenge.
Petersburg Meet Boy Scores:
Sophomore Andy Mihai, fourth place, 18:26.4
Senior Waylon Jones, 20th place, 20:51.5
Freshman Declan Olsen, 23rd place, 21:42.9
Sophomore William Desposato, 38th place, 27:30.0
Petersburg Meet Girl Scores:
Junior Arielle Tucker, second place, 21:19.3
Junior Cadence Flint, fourth place, 22.06.5
Freshman Arya Holmgrain, 11th place, 23:27.9
Junior Zia Hulebak, 12th place, 23:32.1
Senior Maria Toth, 13th place, 23:47.2
Freshman Devyn Flint, 14th place, 23:51.8
