Team Spotlight - Valley HS, Boys

 

Team Spotlight -  Valley High School, Boys

This interview features the Valley High School (West Des Moines) boys cross country team, interview with head coach Tom Trygstad.  The Valley boys were 8th in the Iowa State 4A Cross Country Championships in 2011, and return four of their top seven runners led by individual State 4A Champion Ben Anderson.

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School, location (city, state) -  Valley High School, West Des Moines, IA

Team (boys, girls, both) –  Boys

Head Coach –   Tom Trygstad

Assistant Coach(es) -  

Top (state level) athletes; name, grade, PR’s –   Ben Anderson (12) , 2011 State 4A CHAMPION, PR of 15:02

Key(s) to the success of your team –  The improvement of our 4-10th  runners.  We have a lot of kids out for cc; but our depth when it comes to experience running varsity is a little limited.  We have kids that have been working very hard, but will have to get used to running at a higher level and make big improvements on their PR's by the end of October.  We return 4 out of 7 runners from the state meet and our fifth runner ran about half of the varsity meets last year, but after that we will have some "newbie's" on varsity/top JV.

Your favorite meet(s) –   Roosevelt, Griak, conference, districts, state.  These are the big meets in this order of importance and excitement for us at VHS.

What you most love about cross country -   The life skills that can be learned from distance running and the camaraderie of a team.  I love that your 5, 6, & 7 runners are just as important to team standings as the number 1 runner.  We are very aware of that at our school.  I love seeing how everyone improves throughout the season.  Each runner (at all ability levels) gains a level of confidence and empowerment of seeing their improvement in the sport.

Teams you most enjoy competing against -   We have a high level of respect for our CIML teams we run against all year long.  Dowling has done an outstanding job lately; and it is always fun to run against them.  They will have a national level type varsity team this fall.  We also enjoy getting to run against different teams from time to time.  The eastern side of the state has some outstanding programs that I have a lot of respect for (example: Cedar Falls, Iowa City schools, Pleasant Valley, Linn Mar).

Team goals for the season –   It is always the same goal every year; win conference, qualify for state, and try to get on the podium at state.

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See the IOWATFXC.COM Valley HS webpage at https://ia.milesplit.com/teams/VALLE .