With sophomore Ali Azlin leading the way, East Webster hopes to run its way to a division tile in girls cross country this season.
East Webster heads into this week’s Region 2-2A meet as one of the favorites after a strong showing at the Winona Invitational.
Azlin won the Winona Invitational meet with a time of 23:30 in the 3.1-mile trek.
“She has been running really strong,” cross country coach Wes Johnson said. “She’s pretty much self motivated. She runs on her own. She has impressed me and is going to try and make a college scholarship out of it.”
Johnson said Azlin’s work ethic has rubbed off on some of her teammates.
“She has definitely rubbed off on some of the others and some of those girls are running with her every day,” Johnson said. “She started recruiting some of the girls with her. With what they have been doing, I think we have a good shot at winning the region meet as well.”
Johnson, the school’s baseball coach, was asked to step in the coach the team when the cross-country coach had a baby.
“We’ve done it for several years in a row and they have never won the division so we will see what happens,” Johnson said. “You have to have five to qualify as a team. We have got seven boys and seven girls. We give them guidelines to what they are supposed to be doing on their own and they go do it.”
