Facing a discouraging loss

Team loses chance to compete in state due to scoring error

By Jessamine Von Arx, Talon Staff Writer

On Oct. 27, the girls’ cross country team were handed second place medals which meant a trip to state. This was the first time in eight years the girls’ cross country team woulc have the opportunity to compete against the best in state.

“We all got on the bus and went back to school  a majority of the team went to Davanni’s and we were all super excited that both the boys and girl’s teams were going,” said junior Casey Haffield.

Haffield has been on the team since she was in 7th-grade. She has also run in individual state since she was a freshman.

“I got home and around ten I got a call from our coach,” Haffield said.

At Battle Creek Regional Park, as all seven girls got ready to race in the section 4A meet; it would be the start of what would turn out to be a devastating day.

However, because of prior mistakes, the officials recounted the scores.

“The scorer went over the results again and found the mistake,” said head coach Christian Zimmerman. “There had been several mistakes leading up to it, so he was combing over the results very carefully.”

It turned out Minnehaha Academy and Trinity of River Ridge tied, which called for a tie breaker.  A tie breaker goes to the team where the  sixth runner had the faster time. After the officials found the times for the tie breaker, even though it was close, Minnehaha Academy lost to Trinity.

Not only was it upsetting news to not be able to compete in state, but they had to give their medals back so they could be presented to Trinity.

“For the most part, it’s hard to have a goal that is set at the beginning of the year taken away from you when you thought you might have achieved it,” Zimmerman said.

Even though it was an upsetting situation, Zimmerman was still proud of the girls.

“I will say I am proud of my girls and how they handled this difficult situation,” said Zimmerman. “The way they have supported each other is inspirational to myself and to the other coaches.”

After such a hard loss, this is what shows a teams strength,

“R. Swindoll once said, ‘Life is 10% what happens and 90% how you react to it,’ and I think that is very true,” Haffield said. “I think the girls reacted in one of the best ways they could’ve through a situation like this.”

As a team, they understood the scoring was just a mistake that will motivate them to work even harder this next season.

“I think this can be a valuable learning experience because it shows us how close we were to making it, and it gave us a taste of what state is like, which I think will help us work even harder next season to get to state,” said Haffield.

“I think it also brought us closer as a team, because even though it was really hard, we all stuck together and kind of commiserated with each other in a way. It also goes to show that not everything will always work out in your favor, and when stuff like this happens, you have to roll with the punches because there’s nothing we can do after the fact to change how the race went. I think it will make us all stronger runners and people.”

Zimmerman agreed with Haffield.

“This experience taught me that sometimes terrible things will happen to you or your team, but if used right, can be a galvanizing force in a positive way,” he said. “It really mirrors the Christian walk in a lot of ways, because life is not always going to be sunshine and rainbows. There will be trying times that you need to rely on God to get you through.”