Woodland opens first season on Saturday

The school replaced its fall baseball program.

If you live in Marble Hill, chances are you've seen the Woodland cross country team jog by your home at some point in the last few weeks.

The team is preparing for its inaugural season.

"The students are enjoying it," Cardinals coach Ryan Layton said. "It's hard work, and they're finding that out. But I think they're enjoying it on the whole."

Woodland cut fall baseball in May in favor of cross country after determining more students could participate and travel expenses would be reduced. Woodland was the only school in the Southeast Missourian coverage area to field a baseball team in the fall.

"We had a couple of meetings about it to gauge interest before it was voted on," Layton said. "And now we've got a pretty good mix of students from other sports."

Layton said the conditioning should help the students in other sports, especially basketball. But for now, he is looking forward to beginning the season, which will start Saturday at the Jackson Invitational.

The team has 17 runners -- eight boys and nine girls.

"I'm really excited to see what happens in our first meet," Layton said.

In its inaugural season, Woodland will not host any events, but Layton said it might be possible to host a meet sometime in the future.

"We won't be hosting this year, for sure," he said. "But it is something we're going to look into."

Layton, 27, who ran track and cross county for Southeast Missouri State after graduating from Perryville High School, said cross country has some advantages over other sports.

"One real advantage is it is a cheap sport," he said. "There's not a lot of equipment involved."

Members of Woodland's team are Timothy Abner, Nicole Balzer, Jamie Barker, Terra Eldridge, Ashley Hahn, Emily Jetton, Daniel Lewis, Tabitha Lincoln, Ethan Lix, FiLippo Manca, Benjamin Rhodes, Kayla Setters, James Stewart, Dalton Toombs, Tyler VanGennip, Brittany Wilkinson and Katelin Whitener.

After Saturday's meet, the team will run Sept. 9 at Perryville, Sept. 16 at Cape Girardeau, Sept. 30 at Notre Dame, Oct. 4 at Oak Ridge and Oct. 17 at Advance.