The De Soto High School cross country team hosted its first home meet on Friday, Sept 13. Originally, the meet was going to take place Thursday, but ended up being rescheduled.  The team competed with four other schools, including Piper, Spring Hill, Bonner Springs and Kansas City Christian. 

Despite the meet being rescheduled, head coach Jack Sachse was very impressed with the meets results. 

“It was overall our second year hosting a home meet, so getting the park ready for a race is a big undertaking and  from that perspective it went well,” Sachse said. 

Not only did the meet itself go well as a whole, but De Soto ended up winning, having the lowest times for both boys and girls varsity runners. Because of this, Sachse was very pleased with the teams effort. 

 Sophomore Brady Huggins was also very pleased with how his team did as a whole.

“There were vast improvements in time and gave young runners experience for the meets in the future,” Huggins said. 

Many individuals have improved greatly from the first meet, including sophomore Reed Richards, who beat his previous record with a time of 19:48, placing 16th in the meet overall. 

“I think the team did really well. The boys’ varsity team worked really well with each other during the race,” Richards said. 

This year’s United Kansas Conference cross country  meet will be at the home course, giving the Wildcats a home advantage. 

“When we go run the UKC meet in five weeks, we will be the only school who has run the course, which is a significant advantage,” Sachse said. 

Because the conference meet is in five weeks, the Wildcats will have time to  improve their times, as well as compete against other schools and get familiar with their competition.