JHS XC Opens Season at Home Friday

By John Earp

The Jal High School Cross-Country Team opens its Fall 2025 Season this Friday 9:00 a.m. at the Jal Country Club, where they will host the Loving Falcons Team. JHS has experienced a very remarkable sixfold increase in the number of student-athletes participating in cross-country this year, with six boys and six girls participating this year. Last year, only two went out for the team.

The runners have been practicing at 6:00 a.m. since the beginning of the semester. Head Coach Joe Cole says some of the students have been running a full 5k in the morning practices, with others still working up to that goal. Roy Peugh has been named captain of the team, since he is a returning runner from last year’s team. Kami Satterwhite is the assistant coach for the team.

Cole says his team is looking good, and he is expecting to see good performances out of them this season. “I would say 75% of them look like really, really good. Some of them, obviously, they’re struggling a little bit, but, you know, some of them have never ran that far, or even running in general for, you know, on a constant basis for one or two miles, three miles.”

The team’s training consists of running on the track and on streets around the school on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, with some strength training included each week as well. Towards the end of each week, the team goes out to the Jal Country Club to get in some training runs on a more typical cross-country course.