Lady Cougars Place 2nd in State

This past Monday at Cottonwood Golf Course in Waco, TAPPS (Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools) held its 2022 State Cross Country Championships. Grace Community Cross Country had an impressive showing. Grace Community competed in the first race of the day, Division 5A Girls Championship. A strong team effort led Grace’s top five girls to finish among the top forty runners in a field of one-hundred and forty six starters. This propelled the Grace team into second place. Using a teams’ top five finishers total time, Grace Girls finished fourth among the seventy-one teams competing in all divisions for the day. Antonian College Prep 6A, Southwest Christian 5A and Ursuline Academy 6A were the first three in this category.

Senior Abby Metzger won her second consecutive individual 5A Championship placing her on the 5A All-State Cross Country Team for the fourth year in a row. Grace Sophomore Kayla Minick also garnered First Team All-State Honors. Minick finished in tenth place and was followed by Junior Maggie Jenz (25 th ), Senior Ela Keeling (33 rd ) and Freshman Whitney Callen (38 th ) to complete the scoring. Lauryn Dunn and Emerson Evans were the sixth and seventh members of the team.

Grace Boys Cross Country placed eighth in their field of twenty-five teams. Senior Grayson Gaddis led by turning in a tenth place performance that earned him First Team All-State Honors in the 5A Boys competition. Grayson was followed by Senior Drew Gaddis (28 th ), Freshman Roe Gaddis, Junior Grant Gilmore, Senior Austin Callen, Freshman Zach Callen, and Junior Elias Nix.