Update to story: The Palmetto Invitational has been postponed to next Saturday October 5 due to Hurricane Helene. 

This Saturday, Sept. 28, the Saint Stephen’s Varsity Cross Country team will compete in the Palmetto invitational at the GT Bray Park in Bradenton. 

The Falcons will face off against Parrish Community High, Braden River High, and the Bradenton Christian School, where at this particular event the level of competition has proven extremely high in past years.

“The Palmetto Invitational is going to have some bigger schools there,” Varsity Coach J.B. Wolcott said. “This will provide some extra runners and competition to the course.”

Wolcott added that as the competition gets harder this season, so did the training. This week the cross country teams training has been harder than ever with intense workouts and lots of conditioning so that everyone is well prepared for the invitations.

This year Wolcott has had to work with each runner individually to create their own training plan that works for them due to the shortage of athletes on the roster. With this he has found that each athlete has stepped up their performance and is achieving new personal success.

“This season we have had a smaller group of athletes, which resulted in more individual performance effort,” Wolcott commented. “In doing so [creating individualized workouts] our athletes have been able to better meet their own training plans and personalized goals.”

Both Junior Austin Carr and Sophomore Naeha Akella feel prepared for the race this weekend because of the team’s workout on Wednesday afternoon at GT Bray Park. The workout involved doing mile repeats at a tempo race pace. The timed intervals were varied to each individual athlete. 

“My favorite workout I had this week was the workout we did on Wednesday,” Carr said. “After what we did I feel more than ready for Saturday.” 

Akella added that she too is ready and that the team has their sites on the invitational.

“The mile repeats yesterday felt really good and helped me feel better for what Saturday will look like, which I hope is sub 21 minutes.”

The event will start at 8 pm so don’t be shy and pop out to show support for our fellow falcons.