They're our leaders. They're the ones who led us last year. They're willing to work.

That makes us work that much harder. It does put a lot of pressure on you.

We can work with a district who is willing to annex us or do nothing and the state will end up telling us where our students will go.

Hype does not last long. When you think about the rationale behind the work we have done for two and a half years, it is all about perception and how we want someone to feel.

The whole team ran well, but with this big of a group of schools, it was not easy to make the top eight. We ran some of our fastest times to get in the top 12 to 15 teams. Some of the best Kansas City and St. Louis schools were there in addition to the best athletes from mid-Missouri. This meet was a major showcase of state-wide track talent for this early in the season.

I was most pleased with the team performance as a whole. There were lots of events were we had some relatively green athletes and some others where we didn't know where we would be considering it's the start of the year and all the bad weather. But, we really performed well. This was a really good opening meet for us.