Saturday, November 5, IHSA held the State Cross Country Meet. To qualify for the big race, students had to be a top ten individual not on a qualifying team or their team had to place in the top seven at the Sectional meet the week prior. The Fairfield/Wayne City co-op sent 3 runners who all qualified individually. Senior Chase Smith qualified with a 17th overall finish at sectionals and Freshman Grant Jennette rounded up a great race with an 18th overall finish and Freshman Ella Sager also qualified in the girls race. The State race is hosted at Detweiller Park in Peoria and has been for over 50 years. The course is heavily run and has a meet there almost every week of the season. The three runners were ecstatic to get the chance to run in the State meet. Jennette is unofficially the first freshman to qualify for the meet, and Sager is unofficially the first girl to ever qualify in school history. Smith stated, “Last year, due to injuries, I could barely run a mile to start the season. I hated the fact that I wasn’t fast, because I expected to be the top runner on the team. I put in lots of work during the offseason and it paid off this year.” The race conditions were far from perfect. It began to rain during the last mile of the girls race and rained through a majority of the boys race. The course was almost all mud, runners were slipping and siding everywhere. Senior Jonathan Paul stated, “I didn’t run in the meet but watching it was a blast, there was someone slipping and falling at every corner.” Sager finished sophomore year with a 132nd place finish with a total of  258 runners in the 1A class, Smith finished 94th and Jennette was the final Mule to cross the finish line of the season with a 186th place.