At Sunlake High School, over the years our cross-country team has been excellent. In the previous year, they had an athlete commit Division 1 to the University of Florida and have multiple other athletes who are at the top of their class. One of the athletes is junior Cade Culpepper. He has been doing cross country at the school for 3 years now. The reason he got into the sport in the first place he claims was because “…my sister convinced me to run starting in middle school, since I did well then, I have continued to run [through] the years of high school.” Cade also claims that the running program at Sunlake “…has been highly successful over the past couple of years… [and] the team feels like a family.” They spend so much time like every sport working together all year to get better. Cade also says, “we also have a great coach leading us to be a dominant team.” Within the world of sports, a coach can break or make a team so having one that pushes you and strives for your team to get better is extremely important to the growth of a team. The team had their first meet at USF and Cade said: “Individually I did pretty good at USF, even though it was just a workout…[but] overall we did good walking away with a preseason win.” Starting the season out with a bang is a big boost of confidence. Winning smaller things can build up a team for the bigger events and help them perform when it matters. Sunlake cross-country team is just getting started with their season and plan to make it to states again and perform to the highest level they can.