As the fall sports come to a close, one team that‘s still running strong is Freedom‘s cross country. The girls have improved their times during the progression of the season, which was their main goal from the start. The current record within the section for the girls is 3-5. After Madeline Kubica—the sec-ond best runner on the girls‘ team—was injured, it hurt the team a lot, Coach Ed Shepherd said. The season isn‘t over yet, though, and the girls are still running and even beginning to make goals for next year. Making it to states as a team and not just individually is our goal, Sophomore Dee Dee Adams ex-plained. She has succeeded in making it to states this year due to her indi-vidual performance. The boys are continuing on their quest for states, and are still training with vigor to accomplish this. If the boys‘ team places in the top four posi-tions at WPIALs, the trip to states is a go. Junior Brock Adams said he is definitely looking forward to WPI-ALs, especially since there is a possi-bility of going to states. Aside from just the fall season, running means much more to the cross country team than just some-thing to do during fall and pick back up the following year; cross country and running have become a way of life for many of the runners. Along with becoming a part of their lives, doing this long-distance sport has helped to bond many of the runners together. Both the girls and boys cross coun-try teams are in it together as one big team agreed Coaches Ed Shepherd and Steve Tinker.