For many people, running is just a small sport or activity to do in your free time and stay in shape, or even a form punishment forced by the dreaded school PE teacher. However, to this year’s Liberty Cross Country Varsity squad and alternates, it’s much more than that.

As of November 8, the Jays Cross Country boys and girls both qualified as teams to state at Jefferson City. The boys finished in ninth place overall while the girls finished in tenth, in adition runners Brandon Colner and Madison Nasteff both qualified for all-state competition.

Everyone was very excited for state and senior varsity runner Madison Nasteff states, “I’ve never been to state with a team before, I’ve only gone individually (every year), so it would be incredible to have the team go, especially my senior year,” the Cross Country team is very excited for what is to come, but their success so far did not come easily.

Cross Country has a huge reputation for qualifying and performing well at state. On the contrary, 2012’s fall season of Cross Country had an unfortunate outcome, as that was one year where the Jays did not qualify for state competition. Since last year, the team as a whole has been putting in a lot of hard work in to prevent a repeat of the unfortunate 2012 season.

“Preparation comes back to after we came back from state last year, we trained all Winter, I showed up to morning runs and also evening runs in the winter, I did track in the spring, and then this summer I showed up morning and also evenings and got in like thousands of miles,” senior Lucas Peterson said.

Running year round is only part of preparation for the season individually, as each runner also must improve cooperation as a team for races in the future.

“If one person doesn’t have a good race, or something goes wrong, we’ve done pretty good at stepping up and filling the role that somebody else vacated, and we’ve had a bunch of guys step up and score for us this year,” senior Matt Alvey said.

As a whole the Liberty cross country team has really been working hard, and it shows in competition, but preparation is only part of making it to state.

One thing that the team cannot fully prepare for, however, is the performance of other teams during the season. The majority of runners varsity squad’s for teams are seniors and last year the Jays cross country team had three girls and four boys graduate as varsity runners.

“Whereas this year some of those (other) teams, they lost maybe one or even no people in their top varsity,” Peterson said. “And so West Plains is just a powerhouse, they have so much talent, Lafayette, and St. Louis University High School; those are also just dominate forces that are just crazy, and they’ve gotten even better than they were last year.” Other formidable teams include: Blue Springs and Blue Springs South; Park Hill and Park Hill South; Rockhurst; and Rock Bridge among many others, along with the individuals from teams who that did not qualify for state competition.

Also, many of these teams have runners who have been to state competition several times thus having greater racing experience. However this doesn’t worry the Jays.

“You can’t control what other teams are gonna do when you get down there, as coaching staff, and as a team, we just run our best race that day, and so we want individuals to perform well,” coach Tim Fritson said.

Preparation, Practice, and performance are all important parts of cross country, but of course cannot forget the fun aspects of this sport.

While the road to state is tedious and difficult, it also brings forth a lot of bonding and great times for the team.

“State is always just a blast, I think the best part is on our way home from state we always go to Shakespeare Pizza, and the big thing is it’s like the first time that all of us have soda ever since the season started and so we all just drink a bunch of soda and celebrate, kind of the end of our season,” Nasteff said.

Each practice, race day, and even the after-parties brings the team closer together to become more of a family that just enjoys running and sharing all the great success they have had in the season, especially when they are at state.

“Last year we got fourth and when you place in the top four, you get to go up to that podium and get a trophy.” Fritson said “That’s the first time I’ve ever gotten to do that as a coach so I don’t think I’ll ever forget when we walked up those stairs and they announced Liberty High School, and they handed us that trophy, I’ll never forget that. (It was) one of the highlights of my coaching and career up to this point (because we got to see) all that hard work pay off so yeah, it was awesome,” Fritson said.