The girls’ cross country team can clearly celebrate after the notable finale of the 2015 season. After all, it’s not often when a team gets to make WF sports history.

The team’s  fourth place finish at the NCHSAA 4A Mideast Regional was high enough  to catapult them to the state meet for the first time in over 10 years.

Freshman Erin Spreen who exploded onto the scene this year to become the top Cougar runner expressed her pride and excitement when the team qualified for states.

“I feel really accomplished and happy for our team because it’s been a long time since we’ve gone this far,” Spreen said.

At the Oct. 31 regional meet Spreen took third place overall with a time of 18:15.18, to secure a spot as the top freshman runner in the state.

Following Spreen was senior Kayla Holder, who qualified for states as an individual in 2014. Holder’s 8th place finish (18:45.55) helped make possible the berth for the Cougars.

Holder was eager for her teammates’ presence at the meet.

“I’m more of looking forward to the bonding of the girls’ team,” Holder said.

In cross country scores are tallied based on the team’s top five runners; the strong performances by junior Casey Turro (30th, 19:50.99), and sophomores Sydney Quate (4oth, 20:15.10) and Natalie Mitchell (45th, 20:29.14) also contributed to the Cougars edging Broughton  90 to 125 to claim the last team spot to qualify for states.

Coach Patrick Marshall was unsure of how the girls would place at the meet. He wasn’t the only one apprehensive before this intimidating meet.

“I was kind of nervous, but I was really excited because we had been working all season hoping to qualify for states, and we did, and I was just really proud of the team and everything because we were able to do it,” Turro said.

The muddy conditions contributed to some apprehension at the race’s start. All five girls commented on the difficulty the weather presented.

“I was really nervous in the beginning because there were a lot of people, and it was really muddy,” Spreen said.

Mitchell expressed the same feeling as her teammate.

“I was nervous, but because of the conditions, I didn’t expect that it would be a great race, so I was just kind of going out there and trying my hardest.”

Spreen took 8th overall, quickly followed by Holder in 9th place with less than 3 seconds separating them. That tight placement contributed to the 9th place overall finish and secured both girls All-State team honors.

Spreen reflected on the end of her freshman season and her honor of being selected as an All-State runner.

“It feels really cool because you are at the top of the whole state,” Spreen said.

With the 2015 season concluded, Quate looks forward to what the girls’ team might accomplish in the coming 2016 season.

Quate said, “I hope that we can keep the tradition of going to states up. It would be really cool if we could go the next two years. We definitely have a better team than we have had.”