Lovell harriers celebrate strong season

The Lovell High School cross country team celebrated a successful 2024 season during a special awards night last Tuesday, Nov. 5.

Head coach Caleb Sanders and assistant Bret George acknowledged junior David Durfee as the male runner of the year as the top runner throughout the season. He ran a season and personal best time of 17:53 at the Powell meet.

“David was our top runner all year long, in practice and at meets,” Sanders said.

Coaches named junior Elana Schilthuis as the female runner of the year. After the first three meets, Schilthuis was the fastest Lovell runner the rest of the season and ran a personal best time of 22:02 at Powell.

“I’m pretty impressed with what she did, considering it was her first year running,” Sanders noted.

Sanders announced senior Stetson Asay as the most improved runner “from where he was at the first of the season to where he finished at the end.

“He was consistently our most improved runner,” Sanders said. “It gets harder to improve your time when you get faster. A 30-second improvement in the 19s is different than in the mid-20s.”

While neither the boys nor girls team placed at State in Class 3A, Sanders said there was a much larger jump in improvement this year than the last couple of years.

“We couldn’t measure improvement to our competitors (in the first year in 3A), but we could on time, and it was a big improvement,” he noted.

Sanders noted that the 2024 team was the largest he has coached, with 19 runners competing. The previous high was 18.

He also thanked assistant coach George and Athletic Director Chris Edwards for their work and support, and he said he is grateful for the administration allowing the team to use a bus to take athletes to various sites in the area for training.

The team will lose four runners to graduation after this season: Asay, Dino DeLaCruz, Thane Zollman and Danika Crumrine.