The EHS cross country teams braved chilly temps and soggy conditions Friday at the 4A West Conference Meet in Rock Springs, with the Red Devils and Lady Devils both finishing 5th in the team standings.

Paul Baxter finished fourth on the boys’ side, earning All-Conference honors, while Liesl Botts was the top Lady Devils finisher, placing 13th.

“Paul did a fantastic job, fourth place overall, All-Conference recognition and he ran a really really smart race,” Conrad said. “He still looked strong at the end, and I’m excited to see what he does next week. Liesl Botts led the way for the girls, she’s been a great addition this year. She finished 13th, so just outside of the top 10. We just gotta get our girls to finish strong at the end, we just need to get a little bit more from the start so they can put themselves in a position where they can compete for those top levels at the end of the race when they’re really going to charge it hard to the finish line.”

On the boys’ side, Breck Barton (18th), Bryan Baxter (30th), Justin Moon (32nd), Dallin Horrocks (37th) and Daemon Parks (38th) rounded out the boys’ contingent.

“The boys, considering the conditions, they did fine,” Conrad said. “They put forth the best that we could with the fact that we’ve got three of our top five boys kind of struggling with some injuries, even our top, the three that were returning All-State this year, two of the three had a lot of ups and downs this year. Brian Baxter with his health issues, he just kept trying to give us his best efforts, and he did that again this week and it’s hard and frustrating to not be able to do what you know you should be able to do when everything is healthy.”

“Justin Moon has been coming on really, really strong — he kind of stepped up and we need him to step up again,” Conrad added. “Dallin Horrocks and Daemon Parks, the same way, they time and time again have stepped up and helped out and filled in those spots where we haven’t really been where we wanted to be. We’re just going to have to ask them to do it one more time.”

For the girls, Julia Barton (20th), Jasmine Tapia (23rd), Emma Lonsway (34th), Hallie Prete (35th), Eliza Day (37th) and Kessnie Johnstone rounded out the Lady Devils finishers.

“Again, we’ve had some nagging injuries with our top girls,” Conrad said. “On a brighter note, one of those that has been suffering this season has been one of our seniors — Jasmine Tapia — and she’s now put in two really good races the last two weeks, so we’re really really excited. I think we can see even more from her this next week.”

The 4A State Meet will be held this Saturday at the Little America Golf Course in Cheyenne, a course the EHS teams aren’t familiar with.

“Even though we are back in Cheyenne again this year — where state was last year — it’s a different course,” Conrad said. “We’ve never run it, they hosted a meet early in the season but we didn’t go. It’s hard to travel that far for a race, so we haven’t’ see it yet. It’s got a lot of ups and downs, a lot of turns so we’re excited to get on the course. We’ll get there on Friday, the day before the race and spend several, maybe a couple hours walking it, run it, get a feel for it, try and get ourselves ready with a game plan on how to tackle it.”

“The state has a lot of great, fast runners so it’s going to be competitive,” Conrad added. “We’re going to do the best that we can, and hope that we can be a little bit more healthy than what we were this last week, and perform a little better than we did at conference.”

Conrad hopes to have senior Aidan Conrad back for the state meet, as well. The younger Conrad has been dealing with injuries all season, and had to pull out of Friday’s conference meet in Rock Springs after a couple of miles after aggravating his calf once again.

“He was pretty miserable right after he went down with the injury,” coach Conrad said. “He probably won’t do a ton of running this week, but he’ll get a lot of time on the bike, getting his heart rate up. He’s going to give it the best go that he can give.”