There was once a very old Pat Green song that began by saying "when you take a road trip in West Texas you have to pack up all your stuff and hope for a successful road trip."

This weekend's journey to the Chili Pepper Festival, which is one of the largest high school and college meets in the country, definitely qualifies as successful for your Dragon and Lady Dragon Elite Cross Country teams. Each team competed in the "El Caliente" division of the meet which is the top division of the Chili Pepper Festival. Apparently at the Chili Pepper Festival each division is named after a different type of pepper because what else would you expect from a meet with so much flair that they have an elite paratrooper enter the meet before the start? Hence the above photo.

When the meet got underway the Dragon Cross Country team was led by Nate Lannen placing 5th overall individually 15:40 and Solomon Chavez in 6th 15:42. Antonio Florcruz was 19th 15:59, Joe Gardner was 35th 16:14 and Michael McCabe 36th 16:18. All of this outstanding effort earned the Dragons a gold medal finish or 1st place in the Elite Varsity Boys.

The Lady Dragons also followed suite finishing on top of the podium with a 1st place finish. The team was led by Jenna Holland who won the meet! She came in 1st at 18:19 with Kaylie Cox 2nd at 18:39 and Lydia Lo in 3rd 18:43. That's right your Lady Dragons swept the podium individually finishing in gold, silver and bronze positions!!

Coach Justin Leonard said, "These were our final tune-up meets heading into the championship portion of our season." Note: The Dragon Varsity and JV teams also ran at The Decatur Reunion Run with Varsity Boys taking 2nd and Varsity Girls 3rd. "I thought our boys and girls performed at a high level...We are excited about the District Championship Meet on October 17th. We will be ready and it's going to be fun."

This week's meets concluded the regular season for Cross Country. The championship portion of the schedule begins on Thursday, Oct. 17th when the Dragons host the 5-6A meet at Bob Jones Park.