Previewing Smith Cotton cross country

Smith-Cotton returns six of its top seven runners from a cross country team that finished seventh in the state.

The Lady Tigers may have a tougher time this season, though, as the school has moved from Class 3 to Class 4 for the next two seasons.

Coach Tara Clark said that her team’s district will be a tough one, making the path to state a challenging task.

There are “five state-ranked teams going for four spots,” Clark said of her team’s district. “We’re going to work hard and see what happens.”

The good news is that the top  four teams in each district advance to the sectional meet compared with only two in Class 3.

The coach said her runners weren’t too upset when they learned  they were moving up a class.

“They were like ‘OK, bring it on, we can do it,’ ” Clark said.

Junior Elizabeth Ulmer leads the returning cast. She finished eighth at state last season in 20 minutes, 1 second.

Claire Waldo (25th), Jenny Paul (36th), Audrey VanDyne (48th) and Brianna Platt (71st) are back as are Morgan Hamilton and Melissa Ojeda.

VanDyne has suffered a knee injury. The extent to which it is damaged has yet to be determined.

Junior Jessica Ellis, who ran as a freshman, returns. Jordan Bush, Allison Nevels, Cici Perez and Makayla Rupp are newcomers.

The Lady Tigers’ goals remain the same despite the move up in classification: win conference and see what they can do on the state level.

S-C will debut its 2008 squad on Saturday in the Belton Invitational.

“We’ll see a few teams ranked pretty high,” Clark said. “We can gauge ourselves off of how we do.”