Lady Eagles Take State In Cross Country

After months of sacrifice and hard work, the Skyline Womens Varsity Cross Country team won State on November 4. The Eagles began training in early June to get a head start on the season when it starts up again in August, near back to school time.

The womens cross country team came far from their first meet, the Highland Invitational which placed Skyline against Olympus, Highland, Mountain View, and many other competitive high schools.

Although the team came in fourth at their first meet of the season, the loss helped them prepare for future meets, and they trained harder for their recent state victory.

The victory was not achieved alone. The team was able to compete with determination and success with the unmeasured support and encouragement from head coaches Tom Porter and Aimee Larkin.

Larkin and Porter pushed the womens cross country team to their successes at each meet and provided each runner with support and motivation after some of their slight wins and losses.

Grace Burnett, a junior on the team, said, “Our coach likes to talk a lot but is very motivational and he is like a second dad to all of us; he makes practice fun.”

Porter, and some of the other cross country coaches encouraged the girls using the infamous phrase “run like a team and run smart” in the final moments of their victorious state run. Eve Larkin, a senior on cross country, explains the effective preparations, saying, “Porter always you train how you race. That’s exactly what happened at the state race this year.”

After their final win at State, the team was recognized at a Granite School District board meeting, including girls tennis and boys golf, in front of Doug Bingham and Granite board members for Skyline’s excellence.

Burnett speaks for the team as a whole saying, “It felt amazing to win after training and working so hard with girls that I have been training with for three years.”

Their efforts were officially acknowledged, as receiving the recognition is a great honor, and a milestone in Skyline’s history of womens sports in our own district, and other high schools across Utah.

This win was the first time, ever, that the Skyline Girls Cross Country team have taken State in Granite School District. Larkin said, “All state races had been preparing us for this win.

Last year showed us that we could really win this thing,” as most of the team is made up of seniors who have trained for State for years on end, which helped bring the team to their success.

The team can relax knowing that their hard work strengthened Skylines athletic department, and added to womens sports wins overall.