It was a crazy start to the cross country season for the Highland runners but the craziness was more on the trip to and from South Dakota rather than the meet itself.

To open the 2019 season the Scottie runners competed at the annual night meet in Sioux Falls, South Dakota hosted by Augustana University. The Highland men notched a 17^th place finish as team, while the women finished 25^th as a team competing against some top level competition including NCAA Division I programs.

The last time the Scotties ran the same course at the Augustana Twilight was 2017 and men posted a team average of 21:38 but this year the team posted an average of 21:20. Leading the way for the Scottie men in the four-mile run race was Vicente Correia paced the Scotties with a time of 20:45.52 to place 89^th overall out of 321 individual runners.

Javon Wtkins returned this year for the Scotties and had a strong performance posting the second best time for the Scotties finishing 106^th with a time of 20:58.11. Cross Country head coach, Chad Clevenger thought Watkins had a great start to the season bouncing back from his freshman campaign and ran with confidence.

Deiondre Williams, Nick Cisneros and Joshua Camp each went under 22 minutes in the race placing 136^th, 154^th and 168^th, respectively behind times of 21:24.78, 21:39.93 and 21:53.81. While five other Scottie runners were in action also as Maxson Muenks (206^th – 22:24.33), Ryan Ringer (230^th – 22:46.22), Liam Jones (239^th – 22:54.47), Dario Ramirez (270^th – 24:00.38) and Jean Dieuvil (277^th – 24:29.23) all competed for the Scotties.

"I was thrilled with our performance and efforts as it was one of our best performances at Augie. I'm very excited to watch this team progress this year and build on the first race of the season as I thought we attacked the race well and finished strong. Was good to see confidence from the guys in moving up the racing distance and trusting our fitness. Now we move up to the 8K next week and for the remainder of the season," said Clevenger about the men's team performance.

For the women they were down a runner in the first meet of the season but jumped right into the action and competed against some tough competition. A time of 21:02.90 by De'Janay Davis paced the Scotties as she finished 170^th out of 306 runners. Leah Wagner notched a time of 21:08.79 which is 38 seconds better than her best high school 5K time and placed 179^th overall. Tiana Bowen, Jennifer Lincoln and Octavia Wright raced to times of 23:19, 23:36.51 and 23:40.32, respectively placing 265^th, 272^nd and 273^rd.

"Our women are very young and I see big growth ahead. It will take a little time but we are gelling and I'm excited about that, as we'll be patient with the process. I was very happy with our efforts at Augie and feel we set a good foundation for us to move forward. The final team result is not who we are or what we will look like moving forward as I feel this team will grow and improve," said Clevenger about the women's performance at the Augustana Twilight.

Scotties will be back in action again on Saturday, September 14^th as they travel to Nevada, Missouri to compete at the Cottey College meet.