Hopes are high for what the Laramie High School cross country programs can accomplish in the fall 2022 season.

Laramie begins with the Kelly Walsh Beartrap Invite on Casper Mountain on Friday.

Head coach Greg Schabron enters his 15th season as head coach. He is very excited about their prospects.

“From watching them over the summer, the kids that ran (you can see it). We had three of the guys run in the top ten all-time for the time trial results last week, and one of those included Dominic Eberle (junior), who now has the No. 1 time on our record board, so the depth for the guys (has me excited). Then, with the girls, the strength is there. We need a couple of more numbers for the girls to make a good, strong squad for a team.”

Senior Nathan Martin and junior Leah Schabron talked with KOWB’s David Settle about the cross-country team this fall at LHS. They feel confident in how everyone is doing in training, expect good results, understand what it takes, and more.

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Laramie features a more veteran boys’ team. They return six of their top seven from the state meet last fall and 12 total varsity letter winners. LHS was third at the conference meet and sixth at the state championships in 2021.

Schabron knows they’ve been building towards the top tier, something similar to the 2010s when the Plainsmen won six straight state titles, but the last of those was in 2017. Now, five years later, LHS would love to challenge for the top spot. Schabron said they’ve even brought back some of the workouts they gave the team during the title run.

“I think that sense of confidence is what they need to start bringing, and I’m seeing that (starting to pay off in workouts). That’s going to be fun the next couple of weeks.”

By contrast, the girls bring back three of their top seven and just four total letter winners. Junior Addie Forry returns as the top runner. She won the conference race and took third at the state championships last fall.

Schabron knows Forry played a lot of basketball over the summer, but he’s impressed with her fitness level coming into the season.

“She falls into the category, as a lot of teams, where they’re going to be running well in the next week or two, and then the training’s going to break them down. We’ll probably see a little downtime (from her), but with her experience and her confidence, she’ll fight through. She hasn’t told us what her personal goals are this year, but we’re pretty confident that we know what she wants to do.”

The schedule keeps Laramie around the region. They have cross-country meets in Cheyenne, Rawlins, and Ethete (state preview), plus South Dakota and Colorado. The conference championships are on Oct. 14 in Afton. The state championships are back in Ethete, WY on Oct. 22.

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