This Thursday, the boys cross country team returns to McNair Park, for their conference meet, and junior P.J. Brown is quite excited for the event, not only because of the location, but because it’s a very important meet.

“It’s one of my favorite races of the season,” Brown said. Since the team didn’t have a meet last week, they really worked hard for this meet since it is the Gateway Athletic Conference meet.

“Lately we’ve been focusing on finishing races strong. We do 400 meter repeats and run them as if it was the last 400m of our race,” Brown said. The GACs could very well be the end of the season for many runners, while others may move on. According to Brown, the team is confident heading into the McNair meet.

Not every runner is as excited to race at McNair. Sophomore Corey Deblaze is less thrilled about the location of the meet, even though it is a conference meet.

“I don’t really like McNair Park, Deblaze said. “It’s too boring in my personal opinion.”

Deblaze is in his second year running cross country, and while he is striving to succeed at McNair, he said he wouldn’t be totally upset if the GACs is the last meet of the season for him. As for Brown, he plans on going as far into the postseason as possible.