The Park Hill Girls Cross Country program has never won a conference championship or qualified for state. After speaking with first year head coach Jason Parr, you’d get the feeling that could soon change. An assistant the past three years, Parr is setting ambitious goals for his team and is already showing signs of where he’d like to take the program.
“We’re looking to start a new chapter, almost a new program,” Parr said. “We’ve got great numbers this year. We’ve got 40-50 girls out this year compared to 16 girls last year. We’ve already doubled the size of our team.”
“We’re looking to start a new chapter, almost a new program,” Parr said. “We’ve got great numbers this year. We’ve got 40-50 girls out this year compared to 16 girls last year. We’ve already doubled the size of our team.”
Not only do the Trojans have more runners, but they have tough competition taking place to run varsity.
“I’ve got 16 girls right now fighting for the top seven spots,” Parr said. “I’ve never had that before.”
They’ll be led by senior captains Sarah Pennington and Maddie Cummings who, although not on varsity, their coach says have been great inspirations to their younger teammates.“They’re great girls and they encourage the others to get them through practice,” Parr said. “Without their help, we couldn’t do what we do.”
In what they hope is a groundbreaking year, the Trojans are taking a focused approach to running together in packs. By running at a high tempo together, Parr says, it allows the team to place higher compared to all seven runners going their separate ways.
“We’ve never won the conference, never made it to state as a team, but those are things we’re going to do this year with the group of girls we have,” Parr said. “As a coach you never want to be overconfident with your team, but I’ve been training with them over the past year and I know what they can do.”
An indicator of the Trojans’ progress will come at the Rim Rock Classic on September 25th. Over a thousand runners will participate and Parr already knows the message his team wants to send.
“We’re going to represent Park Hill and let everyone know we’re a new team who’s ready to show up to get it done,” Parr said.
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