The California Pintos boys cross country team has had a fair amount of success this season, including winning the Tri-County Conference Meet Oct. 11 with 44 points - 26 points ahead of second-place Osage. It was the third straight year the team won the conference meet.
Head coach Ron Lebel said he sees his runners competing with each other every day.
"They keep pushing each other harder," Lebel said. "Our top two runners (Trevor Porter, Caden Kirksey) compete with each other every day in practice. I know our top two runners pretty much compete with each other every day in practice. That's the main thing. They continue to push each other."
Lebel said the runners on his team are still trying to cut four to five seconds off of their times. This year, the team was bumped up from a class two district last year to a class three district this year.
"Class three is going to be so much tougher, as we got people like Kirksville, Moberly, Mexico, Blair Oaks, Osage and Southern Boone; the district is pretty loaded," Lebel said. "We are still trying to improve times and give us a little better shot at district coming up."
Lebel said it means a lot to the team, when they get multiple runners in the top 15 after a race.
"That is what their goal is, trying to get up as high as they can," Lebel said. "At the conference race, there had been a few racers who had been beating them and, like I said, we finished second and third. In the last couple of weeks, we had beaten some kids that had beaten us in the past.
"It means a lot to us; I mean that is basically what cross country is, they are trying to push themselves closer and closer to the front and they have been amazing and done a good job at that. Every time we get three or four runners in the front, that is our goal and we feel like we have achieved our goal."
Lebel said the four runners who earned All-Conference have stood out to him this year.
They are: Trevor Porter, who finished second with a time of 17:25.1; Caden Kirksey, who finished in third place with a time of 17:27.2; Isaac Ash, who finished in seventh place with a time of 17:46.2; and Jordan Bondurant, who finished in 10th place with a time of 18:10.4.
Going into districts, Lebel thinks the next three runners, behind those four, are also going to be important. They are Colby Sommerer, Jordan Geiser and Austin Bolin.
"Austin has kind of been the one who has been steeping up for us," Lebel said. "We need one of those guys to have an amazing day at districts."
In the conference meet, Bolin finished in 20th place with a time of 19:00.6, Geiser finished in 36th place with a time of20:28.2, and Sommerer finished in 38th place with a time of 20:30.0
Cross country district meet is Oct. 27 at Bowling Green at 11:20 a.m.
In other conference meet results, the JV boys team finished in first place with 28 points, Hallsville was second with 39 points, and Blair Oaks was third with 54 points. Eli Dunnaway finished in second place with a time of 19:51.0, Gaven McKee finished in third place with a time of 19:59.7, Zach Greathouse finished in fifth place with a time of 20:52.7, William Ireland finished in seventh place with a time of 21:05.9, Chatman Pardoe finished in 11th place with a time of 21:35.6, Braeden Birdsong finished in 19th place with a time of 23:18.9,and James Smith-Kauffman finished in 29th place with a time of 32:38.5.
For the girls varsity team, Caroline Ogg finished in 29th place with a time of 29:09.1.