By Brayden Dirks
The MMCRU Royals cross country(XC) team will kick off their season on Tuesday, September 8th with their first meet in Sibley. This is scheduled to be their second meet of the year but the Okoboji meet last Thursday was cancelled due to weather conditions.
The Royals had no team members graduate last season and will return everyone. On the boys side, the team will have seniors Brayden Dirks, Brett Staab, and Gunnar Grage. They will also have junior Owen Alesch, sophomores Kaden Galles and Mason Peters, and freshmen Max Pepper and Lucas Braun. The girls team will have junior and foreign exchange student Arianna Chiechio, sophomores Alyson Ball and Natalie Plagman, along with freshman Audrey Etter.
The Royal boys XC team should have a strong season as they bring back the three All-Conference team members from last year: Kaden Galles, Owen Alesch, and Gunnar Grage. They will also bring back Brayden Dirks, who had a personal best time of 17:46 last year, and Brett Staab, who had a season’s best time of 18:23 last season.
The Royal girls XC team has one returner this season in Alyson Ball who had a personal best of 27:16 last season. They also bring in three new faces who look for progress throughout the season. Unfortunately there aren’t enough girls to score as a team at meets but that is certainly the goal for next season.
Coach Lisa Spieler is very excited for the upcoming season. She says, “I’m really looking forward to this season as I think we will be very successful. I have a number of seasoned athletes who have put in many miles over the summer and I can already see that extra effort paying off in our practices. I’m blessed to have a great group of kids to work with and I’m excited to see what they can accomplish.” This season could be a special one for the Royals XC Teams and they would love to have everyone’s support at their meets. Listed below is the full season schedule.