If you see young people running down the sidewalks in Ponca City and wonder who they are, it may be that you are witnessing the opening of Ponca City High School cross country practice.

Practice for the Wildcat harriers officially got underway on Monday. Basically since practice consists of running, members of the team can be seen in practice throughout Ponca City after 3 p.m.

Head Coach Wendy Landes is excited about this year’s prospects. That is despite the fact that like other fall sports there has been lots of uncertainty about what the 2020 season would look like.

Part of her excitement has to do with who she expects to be available for this year’s events. The girls team will be greatly improved, partly because there are seven who are out enabling Landes to field a full running team. The boys team has larger numbers and Landes is excited about the quality of those who will be competing for places on the varsity at each event.

“The girls are goal-line oriented. They want to succeed. They want to go to state,” Landes said. “It will be exciting to watch the boys. There will be tough competition week-to-week to see who earns the top seven spots.”

Landes is in her second year as head coach of the cross country progam, which goes beyond the high school to include runners from the middle schools. She is also excited about those who will be assisting her--veteran track coach Lee Guess and Victor Others. Others, you may recall, was one of the most accomplished long distance runners in recent Ponca City High School history.

Usually, cross country runners are able to practice throughout the summer months. This year has been different due to COVID-19 protocols.

“We have had running clubs where the kids run on their own and post their times on line. Summer running is totally voluntary, but this year we weren’t able to run as a team,” she said.

She was also limited in promoting running among younger kids this spring because of the pandemic. Her normal practice is to visit fifth grade students and talk to them about cross country.

Schools did not meet in buildings this spring so those visits didn’t happen. She has less a handle on how many of the younger runners will report. She does expect 50 to 60 high school age runners to report during this opening week.

What protocols will be in place as the season progresses?

“There will be no high fives, we won’t share water bottles and when we do warm ups everyone will be six-feet apart,” she said. “We are asking the kids not to buddy run (where two or three run together). We may ask the kids to wear masks at the starting lines, but obviously you can’t run with a mask. We have been cleared to proceed with our schedule.”

The first meet will be at Enid on Aug. 15.

PONCA CITY CROSS COUNTRY

2020 Schedule

Sat. Aug 15 — at Enid, HS Sat. Aug. 29 — at

Sat. Aug. 29 — at Sequoyah-Claremore, JH/ HS

Fri. Sept. 4 — at Carl Albert, JH/HS

Sat. Sept. 12 — at Moore, JH/HS

Sat. Sept. 19 — at Hennessey, HS

Thu. Oct. 1 — at Owasso, JH/HS

Thu. Oct. 15 — Ponca City, JH/HS

Sat. Oct. 24 — Regional Meet

Sat. Oct. 31 — State Meet