For the 1st time in Alpena High School History, the boys cross country team won the Regional Championship! And it is the first boys team that has qualified for the State Competition since 1999. In 1999, the team of Adam Borchert, Matt Boyk, Chad Kaiser, Donald Maller, Dan Quaine, Lyle Schultz, Nick Suszek qualified for the Class A State Championship. The Alpena High School Varsity Boys team consists of Mitchell Day, Aden Smith, Josh Smith, Isaac Cross, Clay Donajkowski, Avery Burrone and Sam Tuscher. Regarding the Regional meet, the importance of placement, not time, was stressed. We had a team meeting on Wednesday prior to the race and discussed the potential of the team. The team was predicted to finish 4th with 93 points. I believed their potential was 75 points. I also told them that I believed that 75 points would win the meet. The rest of the week was spent mentally preparing for the race. The team executed the race strategy to perfection. Even though Mitchell Day was the favorite to win the meet individually, the region was taken by surprise with Aden Smith and Josh Smith finishing 2nd and 3rd. The 3 runners worked together to make that happen. Isaac Cross, an experienced runner on our team, is dependable and determined and worked to be where he needed to be within the pack of 100 runners finishing 23. Rounding out the team was Clay Donajkowski finishing 44th. He worked his way through the group to a position better than planned. Alpena High School finished 1st with 73 points topping Bay City Western by 3 points! Grand Blanc finished 3rd with 80 points topping Saginaw Heritage by 3 points as well. The top 4 teams were separated by a mere 10 points! Anna Young, a freshman, will also be representing the girls cross country team for Alpena High School. They will all compete at the Division 1 State Championship meet on Saturday, November 5.