In an amazing testament to the runaway success of the LISD Cross Country Program, all 6 of the Lovejoy teams won their UIL District 13-3A Cross Country Championship races October 27 at Celebration Park in Allen, Texas.  Even the LHS girls teams, which had not fielded a full team until last year's District Championship, easily won both the Varsity Girls and JV Girls races.  Dozens of Lovejoy runners were dripping with medals by the conclusion of the festivities.  Coach Christensen and the rest of the coaching staff were laden down with trophies and plaques to adorn the LHS and SCMS trophy cases.

One reason for the day's successes was the absence of Frisco Wakeland and Frisco Liberty, which had been bumped up to 4A for this academic year.  These schools provided the brunt of the competition at District last year.  Without them, the 3A meet was almost too easy for the small army of well-prepared Leopard runners.  Most of the LISD dignitaries were on hand to cheer on the athletes.

The LHS Varsity teams (Boys and Girls) will compete at the UIL Region II-3A Cross Country Championships on Saturday morning, November 8th at Vandergriff Park in Arlington, Texas.

The morning started with the LHS Varsity Girls winning 1st place in a 6-team race.  The girls beat the 2nd place finisher, Farmersville, by a score of 25-63. The Varsity Boys followed in stunning fashion by securing an almost perfect score of 17.  Princeton was 2nd with 46 points.  The LHS Varsity Boys also won District last year.  The JV Girls had arguably the easiest race of the day--none of the other schools brought a JV Girls team.  Still Lovejoy's JV Girls ran a solid race, making it hard to believe that another school could have outrun them.  If they had run in the Varisty Girls race, the LHS JV Girls would have finished 4th out of 7 teams, but not far behind the 2nd place finisher.  The JV Boys then completed the LHS sweep by ringing up the ultra-perfect score of 15 and taking the 6th and 7th overall places in the race.  Princeton came in 2nd with 73 points.

The meet continued with the middle school races.  The Sloan Creek Middle School students didn't disappoint.  The SCMS Girls gave yet another great girl-power performance and easily won their race.  Then came what turned out to be the most competitive race of the day.  The SCMS Boys narrowly defeated Princeton by a score of 29-31.  The Leopards looked to be in trouble until their #5, #6 and #7 runners came in ahead of Princeton's #5 runner, thus slamming the door and completing the LISD sweep.

One Princeton runner concisely summed it up at the end of the meet: "Those Lovejoy runners are really fast."