Muldrow Invitational meet set Thursday

The Muldrow Invitational cross country meet will have its second go-round Thursday morning at the old Muldrow Golf Course.

The high school girls race will commence things beginning at 9 a.m., followed by the high school boys race at approximately 9:30-9:45 a.m, the junior high girls race at approximately 10:15-10:30 a.m. and the junior high school boys race at approximately 11-11:15 a.m.

Because of adding the junior high divisions to this year’s event, unlike a year ago when it was just strictly the high school runners who competed, there likely will be more schools represented on Thursday than at last fall’s inaugural meet.

“That’s still up in the air,” Muldrow Lady Bulldogs cross country coach Debra Silva-McDonald said about more teams and runners this year. “You never know until you see how many show up. We did include junior high this year, and that helped bring in some more teams by including the junior high. Last year was just high school.”

“We had it only opened up for high school because we weren’t sure how things were going to go, and we were trying to iron out all the wrinkles,” Muldrow Bulldogs cross country coach Terry Collins said. “We opened it up (this fall) to the middle schools, and we should have a whole bunch more schools coming.”

Both Muldrow coaches thought last year’s first-ever Muldrow Invitational went well.

“Last year went great — our girls won it,” Silva-McDonald said. “You can’t do any better than that. It was real smooth. I think they (non-Muldrow runners) liked the course.”

“I thought the meet itself went pretty well,” Collins said. “I felt that we had a home advantage, and we competed a little more. Hopefully, that will stand for this one.”

The course won’t exactly be the same as a year ago. “We did change it up this season,” Silva-McDonald said. “We asked them how would they feel about it, and it was more the runners. There was a bottleneck, so we switched it. We moved our start so we eliminated that bottleneck. The course is pretty much the same. They will just run the course backwards (from the way it was ran in 2023).”

There was a reason why the decision was made to run the high school races first Thursday morning.

“We’ll start with the high school first because I would like my cross country kids to help with the junior high meets,” Silva-McDonald said.

Both coaches said the Muldrow runners are ready for their own meet Thursday morning.

“We’re looking forward to competing (at home),” Collins said. “Hopefully, these guys will get their competitive edge and be ready to go. I feel like we have a home advantage. We know where all the ruts and potholes are. We know the course. Hopefully, that will be an advantage for us.”

“They’re excited, especially being on your home course,” Silva-McDonald said. “It’s a big advantage for our runners. They know all the holes and stuff. They know what to avoid. It’s familiar to them.”