Off to the RACES

PRE-REGION @ Little Valley
The season got off to a very solid start for the Panther x-country team with the Pre-Region meet held on Aug. 15 at the Little Valley Ball Fields. Both 3A and 4A regions competed together (with combined and separate scoring). On the boys' side, Trevor Thompson led PV to the overall team title with a 1st place finish in 15:54. It was the whole team, however, combined for the strong season opening showing. The girls started the season strong by beating Dixie in a 6th place tie-breaker in the 4A region breakdown.
@ Cedar
The next Wednesday, PVXC traveled to Cedar to compete on their new course (changed because of construction). The course ran quite a bit slower than the old course, but both teams did very well. The girls closed the gap on Snow Canyon considerably in the region points - led by Kaylee Boyer's breakthrough race. The boys were paced by Corey Kimzey as they beat Canyon View by nearly 20 points.
Hurricane Invite
In the first invitation of the year, PVXC looked to repeat as boys champs; and did just that as Trevor Thompson used a strong finishing kick to victory to lead a strong showing of all 5 scoring Panthers in the top 10 to pull away from a very good Canyon View team. The girls continued to close the gap on Snow Canyon and are gaining confidence that the goal of a region title is possible with team unity and hard work.
SUU Invite
The biggest race to date of the season was the SUU Invite. Perenial state and national power Mountain View consistently wins this meet. But with our boys ranked #1 in 4A and the Bruins ranked #2, it looked to be a show down of two possible state title contenders - not to mention 3A power Canyon View looking to make waves. Core Kimzey and Trevor Thompson led the Panther harriers with 3rd and 4th place finishes, but the depth of the middle scorers of Mt. View was too much to overcome as they once again defeated the boys this year. Mt. View is a great team and this showed us it is going to take a lot of hard work and team racing to beat this team. The girls used their own team racing to run their strongest race of the season. The Panther women finished just 5 points behind SC in the overall scoring (and I'll have to break down the region, but we may have taken them their!).
Great racing everyone... Keep it up, we have a long way to go and a lot of room to improve until the end of the year!