I do believe this year that the fifth, sixth and seventh spots will be challenged by other Newtown girls this year, ... which is a wonderful thing to have in cross country. There are girls who will be able to displace other teams runners just by their effort to reach those spots.

I feel that this group of girls, the entire team, has already come together as a unit.

Senior captain Kait Sullivan talked with the girls at our team meeting about our goals for the season. Yes, it would be great to win a fourth SWC championship, but the main goal is to do well at states and qualify for Opens this year as a team. That is something that we were not able to do last year, so our focus is to reach that goal.

We threw in the full-court presses three days ago. The girls did it very well, and they sold out on it.

I keep telling the girls good free-throw shooters are made during the summer. Once you get into the season you keep practicing them but you're really not going to improve all that much.

The girls set individual goals. We fulfilled those goals.