We put 27 riders on the line in total and brought home a top spot in the middle school team competition with 1,934 points!

(FYI, team scoring includes the top 4 riders from an academic category and must include at least one boy or girl, meaning it can't be a single gender).

Overall we had 6 on the podium (top five) and 14 finished in the top 10 of their category!

James Thomas won Middle School A Boys handily with a gap of 20 seconds. That is a result James has been working hard for and he earned it with the second fastest split on the team 17:38.8, just a hair (.6 seconds!) behind Grant. Well done, James!

Lauren Yates took 2nd in Middle School B Girls, finishing 24:35.2 just 39 seconds off the winner and the closest we came to a second overall victory. Lauren has also been working really hard racing cross-country this concurrently and rode Snowshoe Enduro last weekend, which I'm sure made those Miller School features feel tiny in comparison. Awesome work, Lauren!

Jack Childers had a really impressive ride coming in 4th out of 54 in Middle School B Boys, only 2 minutes off the winner's time, and he got faster on lap 2. Jack's face said it all when he crossed the line: he left everything he had on the course. Jack hasn't been able to bike much over the past few months, so I wasn't sure where he'd fall, but he showed off that Childers' spirit and determination! Really exciting to see.

We also had London Merchant (4th, MS C Boys), JP Price (5th, MS C Boys), and Sophia Black (5th, JV3 Girls) all make the podium! London and Sophia were both in their first NICA races and absolutely crushed it. JP coming out and showing the field what's up rocketing well ahead of the group on the opening climb. 

• Grant Clayman — 7th of 54 in JV1 Boys, our strongest result in HS boys with three laps inside 30 seconds of each other (17:38 / 17:58 / 17:29). Solid pacing.

• Rachel Reynolds - All you have to do is tell Rachel it's a race and she'll show you what she's made of. 6th in JV1 Girls and the best negative split on the team, riding lap 2 nearly 3% faster than lap 1. Podium next week? No pressure.

• Emmett Gerner - First time out at a race and pulls off 10th of 56 in JV3 Boys with some very even laps, about 1 second apart.

• Chloe Childers - 7th in Varsity Girls, the toughest category we're competing in. Largest team points grab of anyone! That podium will come at some point. 

It's really tough not to talk about everyone because we had so many stellar performances, but this is already long and Brittany said there are too many stats. But I do want to call out Rhett Gerner and Ryan Vann, who also participated in their first NICA races and finished in very respectable mid-pack positions. I think it's easy to compare yourself to faster riders and feel disappointed, but in those big fields finishing middle of the group is commendable.