Hungry for stronger runners and encouraged athletes, Scott Spears, the new cross country coach pushes his athletes to further limits.

Freshman Zane Long said, “I think he’s nice, I think he knows what he’s doing, and he kind of knows how to make people better at what they do.” Spears became a coach of the Lakeridge cross country team this year, after 22 years of previous coaching.

“I think he’s really good and he has a lot of plans for us and he has a lot of goals for what we’re going to do,” said sophomore Maj Wehrmeister. “I think he puts a lot of time into it and that’s a good thing.”

Spears has many objectives for this school year.

“The ultimate goal is for each of the 84 members to reach their peak fitness at the same time,” Spears said. “Our district goal is to display how prepared we are as a team.”

“He’s pretty strict but he’s really nice,” said junior AJ Crozco. “He tries to push you but he does in a good way.”

“Our easy runs are four or six miles,” said freshman Victoria Lee.

Spears’ objective as a coach is to “encourage these student athletes to work hard, take risks and dream big.”

The cross country state competition is on Saturday, Nov. 1st at Lane Community College.