The Boys Cross Country team had a fast and competitive day today at the Shepherd Bluejay Invitational on October 3rd. Our Varsity crew earned a 3rd place finish, falling just short behind high-level East Grand Rapids and Traverse City West teams and defeating several other high-caliber programs in the process. The top-5 runners finished within 1 minute and 16 seconds of each other, with all 5 running the 5k in under 16 minutes and 40 seconds, and our entire Varsity 7 finishing in under 17 minutes. We finished 2nd as a team in the Junior Varsity race, with our top 5 all impressively all finishing within 22 seconds of each other! Individually, a plethora of notable things took place today. First and foremost, in running 15:21.7 to finish in 7th place today, Rylen Richey broke the legendary Andy Marsh's Cross Country 5k school record, set in 1999, of 15:24.1. Additionally, we had 18 athletes achieve Lifetime Personal Records today. 9th grader Ian Schmidt and 12th grader Micah Couser worked together to make a huge jump in breaking 17 minutes for the first time. Esaiah Hutchinson and Tristan Rogers each ran more than 2 minutes faster here than last year. Skylan Bowie, Jackson Harlow, Landon Humphrey, Dayton Vandermore, Noah Thelen, and Joel Schimidt also had huge days today, each running more than a minute faster than did last year at this course and meet, with Joel in particular competing incredibly toughly and intelligently today. The team will take this week off of racing to train and recover before we enter the championship phase of the season, as we near our opportunity to cinch our goals for the season; the Junior Varsity crew will take the line next at East Lansing's competitive Bob Brown JV Invitational on October 15th, and our Varsity Crew will seek to defend our Greater Lansing Cross Country title on October 17th at Ledge Meadows Golf Course.