For the first time in several years, the Soroco cross country team is fielding a complete boys team stocked with seven athletes.

The girls team also expanded, as the Rams were able to retain the whole non-graduating roster from last year and added two more for this season.

With only one senior girl and one senior boy in the program, the team will likely stay intact and continue to grow for the years to come. 

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Head coach Kim Kuda thinks the team is already on a great trajectory for this season and foresees even better results than last year. 

“Every race we get out there, we’re trying to beat last year’s time that we ran at the same course,” Kuda said. “We’re just trying to put ourselves in a good position for when regionals run around; we would really love to have the girls go back again. Last year, (the girls) were regionals champs, so it would be nice to get back to state. For the boys, we would love to qualify as a team.”

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Qualifying depends entirely upon the team’s performance at regionals and how the Rams stack up against the other schools. 

Kuda is hopeful the experiences from last year’s regional championship run will help boost the athletes in 2022. 

With only two meets under their belt, Kuda has already been impressed with the athletes’ performances and highlighted that one of her girls has already set a new personal record, beating her previous time by a full minute. 

“Every day we just go out there and give it our hardest; that’s kind of how we do it as a team,” Kuda said. “Each practice is everything we’ve got that day.”

The team started its season on Aug. 20 at the Meeker Invitational and then ran the following week at the Basalt Longhorn Cross Country Invitational on Aug. 27. 

There were not enough athletes for either the boys or girls to team to reach the required four racers to collect team points at Meeker. The girls faced the same situation in Basalt, while the boys had five of runners compete and earned a team score, placing 11th at the invitational.

Soroco competes in the third race of the season on Saturday, Sept. 3, at the West Grand Invitational in Kremmling.

As the season goes on, Kuda is excited to see the team get stronger on the course and build tight relationships off the course.

“I just love cross country because we’re a family and we kind of bond that way because we’re a smaller team,” Kuda said. “It’s everyone on the team pushing each other to get the results we want at the end of the season. That makes it really special, and each one of us takes our best to kind of get where we need to be.”

To reach Tom Skulski, call 970-871-4240, email tskulski@SteamboatPilot.com.