If you would of told me Saturday before the race that we were going to qualify for state without one of our top runners scoring for us I would have never believed you!

However, not only did we qualify for state, we got third place, beating out East Peoria by three points.

Going into the sectional meet our only goal was to qualify for state. We were hoping for fifth and were not considering anything better than fourth place.

We were feeling pretty confident that we could grab the fourth or fifth spot since we were for the most part all healthy, which is not something many teams can say right now.

Emily Ford has been our first or second runner all season and had been sick earlier in the week. She was feeling better by Friday and Saturday, but once the gun went off it became apparent that she was not 100 percent.

She started of strong but began to fade by the half-mile mark. When the race was over she finished as our seventh runner. She is an extremely consistent runner and to see her drop so far back in one race told us that there was definitely something wrong.

However, instead of getting discouraged and giving up once we saw our teammate hurting we dug deep and did what we knew we had to do.

Going to state was our dream and we were not about to let that dream die. Every single one of us ran harder than we had ever run before.

Not only did we qualify for state, but we got third place, something that we would not have thought possible even with a full team!

I think her bad race was exactly what our team needed. It sounds crazy but we never would have ran that well if we wouldn't have been pushing for her. Saturday each of us broke through to a new level of running. That is exactly what we need going into the state meet. All we can do is thank God for the great season we have had so far and pray that he will keep us healthy for this Saturday!