*This story was to appear before the state meet this morning. A recap story will be posted early next week. 

For the first time ever, the Windsor cross country team will be taking two athletes to state.

Senior Bradley Ahrens and junior Nick Daughtery both advanced to state after an impressive showing at the district meet. 

Ahrens took eighth with a time of 16:34.51. Daughtery took 20th with a time of 17:28.68. The top 30 athletes advance. 

Both Daughtery and Ahrens have been working hard to make it as far as they have. Last year, Ahrens became the first Windsor cross country athlete to medal at state with a 25th place finish. Even with COVID-19 affecting everything last year, they never gave up and kept working to get as far and fast as they could possibly get. 

Daughtery said, “I feel incredibly happy especially with what was going on with last year and not getting to practice.” 

Both have goals to achieve at the end of this season. 

“In terms of running, I wish I could be just a little faster. One of my goals this year was to break 16 minutes. I’m at 16:20 right now,” Ahrens said. 

Even hasn’t though Ahrens hasn’t gone under 16 minutes yet,  he hasn’t given up. Ahrens can still try and achieve his goal while he is at state. One thing about Ahrens is that, even though he hasn’t achieved his goal just yet, it doesn’t mean he won’t keep pushing and break it at state. 

Daughtery said, “My goals were to at least make top 30.”

They have been training all offseason to get to this point.  They both have improved so much with the help of their coach, John Leech. 

Leech is the cross country coach and is bringing two athletes to state for the first time. 

As Ahrens nears the end of his Windsor career, he is planning to continue running in college. 

“The plan is to continue to do cross country in college,” Ahrens said.