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The Bearcat cross-country team will compete at a Sherwood Christian Academy-hosted meet in Albany this weekend. 

Head coach Eric Connor said Saturday’s competition will be used to set baseline times for most runners on the team. 

“For my new kids, this is just an eyes wide open experience for them,” Connor said. “It’s basically like a warm-up to the season.” 

The more experienced runners on the team know this weekend’s course well, according to Connor. He said the meet will allow them to see how close they are to reaching their goals for the season. 

Senior Jahlae Sapp is looking forward to a big year this season. One of his goals for the season is to break Bainbridge High School’s 5k record of 15:56. He’ll have a chance to see how close he is to reaching that goal this weekend. His personal best time is 17:30 going into the meet. 

“In the past years, I didn’t have the right training,” Sapp said. “But now I’ve got the right training. I feel like I can get to it. I’ve just got the mindset of, like, if I can break two minutes last year, I can do two minutes again and break the school record.”

Connor said around 20 schools signed up for the meet and that he’s looking forward to seeing how his team performs at the season opener.

“We were asking a lot from these kids,” Connor said. “The heat has been killer these past two weeks. The weather hasn’t been cooperative. Sometimes we have thunderstorms. It’s been mainly just mentally getting ready.”