The girls’ cross- country season ended a few weeks but the season was not officially celebrated or wrapped up until the 19th of November. To give the season a proper ending a team banquet was held.

“We always have a banquet to celebrate the season and end on a high note,” senior Morgan Heckman said.

The girls’ team, parents and a few members of the boys cross country team, gathered in the gym side commons for a potluck of sorts. This years banquet had to run a little differently than in years passed, due to Coach Loughran’s absence. Normally Loughran would go through and talk about each girl, especially the seniors.

“That was always really important to me, he always spent the longest time talking about the seniors, because he’s worked with us for four years,” Heckman said. This year the task of hosting fell to this years group of seniors Loughran would have spoken so fondly of. The seniors went through the grades, starting with the two eighth graders you had participated throughout the season, and talked about each girl.

“They [the seniors] know us better, and they run with us. They make it [the banquet] more emotional,” said sophomore Tina Serrell.

Of course there was the problem of how the seniors would talk about themselves.

“That was a big hole, that I wasn’t sure if we could fill, but I think we came up with a really good way to do it. Which was to talk about each other,” Heckman said. Each girl wrote a poem about each other.

After the seniors had talked about each girl, Coach Makarewich talked about times and shared memories of the season. She invited the girls to share their own memories and many did. Senior Laurie Serrell showed a slide show of notes the girls had written to each other throughout the season. During this time some of the girls were moved to tears.

“They’re very emotional,” said Tina Serrell of the banquets.

Next came awards from Makarewich, which consisted of “Most Improved” and “Rookie of the Year”.  The seniors once again took the stage to hand out their own personalized awards. Each girl picked an award that held an aspect of their personality, such as “Heart of the Gorrilla”, to pass on to an underclassmen.

Coach Makarewich then gave specialized awards to each of the seniors, to recognize them for everything they bring to the team.

Coach’s gifts were the final thing to be distributed. Coach Jeff, Coach Meg, and Coach Makarewich were all recognized for all their help throughout the season.

After everyone was talked about and all awards were handed out, the banquet came to a close. Many pictures were taken, and there was an abundance of hugs.

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The seniors.