March Newsletter

It's been a while since the season wrapped up.  We're now more than halfway through the off-season and are closer to the start of summer training than the state championship.  

A lot has happened in the last four months, and so we wanted to include all of the updates in one place.

Postseason Honors

Our athletes have been getting lots of recognition for their performance last year.  First, we had 9 students receive Academic All State honors.  To qualify, students must have raced in the postseason (Districts and/or State) while also maintaining a cumulative unweighted GPA of 3.6 through the end of last semester.  This was the most runners of any school in our district.  We're proud of the hard work and success our athletes displayed in the classroom along with on the course.  

Each year Regional Radio KTJJ selects their Dream Team for all high school sports, highlighting the top athletes from schools in their listener area.  Athletes are nominated by their own coaches but are voted on by the coaches of other schools.  For cross country, only five boys and girls each are selected.  This year Reagan Meyer was one of them.  Despite the success of all of our fall sports teams, Reagan was the only SV athlete to earn the honor.  Considering the many talented young runners in our region, we're proud of the accomplishment.

Finally, each summer local media site Semoball hosts an awards ceremony recognizing the top high school athlete from southeast Missouri in each sport.  Prior to the awards they name the finalists for each sport.  Only 10 boys and girls were selected for cross country, and we are excited to have Carter Hennemann, Reagan Meyer, and Anna Welker among them.  This is the first year our school has had 3 finalists, which was tied for the second most of any school in the region.    

Website Updates

Our team project is a constant work in progress, with new features and updates always showing up.  The off-season is the peak time for improvements.  This year we have a few new items:

Roster Page:  Now you can find all members of our team, each with their own personal page with details, stats, and photos.  You can find it here.

Team Promo Page:  Given the nature of high school sports, our team is constantly looking to recruit new members.  To help with this, we have a promo page that summarizes what our team emphasizes.  Many of our athletes submitted quotes about what they love about our team and how it's impacted them.  The page features many of these quotes, as well as answers to many of the objects frequently given to joining.  Potential new athletes and their families will be directed to this page, but you can also preview it here.

Updated College Recruiting Post:  The college athletics situation is changing by the minute, which made an update to the post on the recruiting process both necessary and perhaps futile.  With a number of sophomores and juniors on our team who might have interest in running after high school, this information can be super helpful in navigating the process, and you can find it here.

Resources Page:  Along with college recruiting, our website has resource posts on diverse topics like running shoes, watches, iron testing, supplements, recovery, and more.  The problem is that they weren't easy to find.  To help with that, there's now a single resource page from which you can access all of them.  You can find that here, but it's also in the navigation menu on the website.  There are a few topics that haven't been fully addressed on the team website, so for now there are links to trusted outside sources.  

2026 Summer Team Camp

Last year we debuted a team camp, with our boys and girls making trips to Lawrence, Kansas and Naperville, Illinois respectively.  We've decided to alternate single-gender trips like this with coed camps.  This summer our team will be holding camp at Johnson Shut Ins State Park from July 15-17.  Athletes will be staying in the new cabins at the park and will have opportunity for fun, bonding, planning, and of course running.  Cost this year will be $120.  You can find more details here.  Space in the cabins is somewhat limited, and so attendance will be restricted to returning runners until April 17, when it will be opened up to newcomers.  

Pre-Summer Parent Meeting

This year we are hoping to hold a meeting at the beginning of summer.  This will give a chance to make sure parents and coaches are on the same page and to answer any questions.  We're also hoping to bring in a sports dietitian (at least virtually) to offer guidance and answer any questions about nutrition.  Many of our athletes have received this information through coaches and last summer's team camps, but with parents doing a lot of the grocery shopping and meal prep, we realized this information would be beneficial to them as well.  

The target date for this is in the evening the week of June 1-5, but we wanted to try to pick the evening that works best for parents.  A poll was sent out in the parent GroupMe.  Once those results are in, more details will be shared.