Packed tight

The competition is a daily thing for the Blue Devil cross country runners - at every practice and every race. Nobody wants to give in. Nobody is giving an inch.

Tim Smith, David Holden, Steven Reynolds, Charlie Bayne, and Daniel Austin are so similar in ability, nobody is top dog for long.

But that's ok. The guys are hoping to ride their friendly competition to their third consecutive regional championships berth.

"My teammates and I, the top four or five guys are pretty much the same speed," Reynolds said. "On any given day, anybody can finish first. It's been insane. That's what you're looking for in a cross country team."

There have been some growing pains over the years, but the group has tasted success. They want more. They were 15th at the regional meet last year and 11th the year before. Now they want to take the next step into the top 10.

"Right now, they're taking it more seriously," coach Kim Williams said. "They're starting to realize that they can do this sport and do it well."

A few years back, the team relied on front-runner Devin Cornwall to carry them. But he's in his second year at Virginia Tech now, and the team has adopted a new strategy. The Blue Devils know that none of them will win the individual race at today's district meet, but if they run together throughout the race, they'll end up doing well. But that strategy took some getting used to.

"They're believing in that philosophy of racing now," Williams said. "I'm starting to watch them gel."

Cross country is a team sport only in theory. Once the gun goes off, runners are all alone for three miles.

But that's what makes the Blue Devils' pack-running strategy so effective. When it starts to hurt, there's always a teammate to lend some encouragement.

"If you're coming up on somebody and you're going to pass them, you encourage them to keep running," Bayne said. "Everybody helps push each other."

It helps that the Blue Devils are all great friends away from practice. It's a long season. The monotony of daily practices can wear athletes down.

But the CCHS runners like to keep it light.

"We're pretty crazy," Smith said. "We like having a good time. But there's a time to be serious, and we can do that. We just have to focus."

That light-hearted attitude has paid off for the Blue Devils lately. They're rounding into form just in time for today's district meet. They finished third out of 15 teams at the All-Area meet Oct. 10, and won a district quad meet Oct. 17.

And with the temperatures beginning to cool, the boys have seen their times drop drastically in recent weeks.

Osbourn Park and Battlefield have emerged as district favorites, but the Blue Devils should be in the mix for one of the other two regional-qualifying spots. With a tightly bunched group, Smith is confident the team will do well. It's just a matter of putting it all together at the right time.

"If we can all have our best day on the same day, we'll do pretty well," he said. "We're as conditioned as we need to be, but we need to get mentally focused."

Jason Simcoe can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 166 or .