When Lucy Gay began her tenure as Wellsville-Middletown cross country coach on Sept. 4 at the Mexico Invitational, she had to deal with the blazing hot temperatures.

“Mexico was a hot one,” Gay said.

On Sept. 21, Gay had reason to be excited about the cool weather when her team hosted the W-M Invitational on Sept. 21. The meet was held in temperatures in the high 60s.

“It was a good meet,” Gay said. “I’m happy that no one got hurt and no one had heat problems when they crossed the finish line.”

Gay was also happy that four of her runners on the high school team set personal-best times and one runner on the junior high team earned a medal in the junior high race.

Sophomores Silas Jones, Lucas Spiers and Zeke Bradley and freshman Luke Nelson made up the high school team. Asher Lehnen, a seventh-grade student, placed 12th in the junior high school race to earn a medal.

Now, as the W-M cross country season has reached the halfway point, Gay hopes her runners will continue turning in strong efforts in every meet.

“If we can just keep getting them to find that consistent pace, improve and shave time off that pace in their split times, I think they have really great potential,” Gay said. “I’m excited for all of them.”

Gay took over head coaching duties for Skyler Durham this fall. She is coaching a team that has seven runners, all of them are boys.

“She’s a really good coach,” Jones said. “She’s coaching really well. She’s getting us out running consistently.”

On the high school team, three of the runners – Jones, Bradley and Spiers – are back from last year, while Nelson is running for the first time. Asher Lehnen, Brody Lehnen and Reed Nelson make up the junior high team.

“I’m happy to have them all,” Gay said.

Gay, who was a four-time state qualifier in cross country for the Tigers, had never coached a team at any level until this fall. She said she is enjoying coaching after a month.

“It’s good,” said Gay, who also co-owns a landscape company with her husband Jace in Middletown. “I really think that (W-M activities director Kevin Oligschlaeger) Mr. O makes it really enjoyable. The parents are all supportive, so that’s really nice. The kids are great. They come to practice every day, ready to run and willing to run. It’s fun and nostalgic because I was once running. I feel like I see other coaches and they were still coaching when I was still running, so it’s kind of funny. They’re like, ‘Didn’t you run?’ I was like, ‘I did.” They cheered me on once. It’s been good. I have no complaints.”

In the season-opening meet at Mexico, temperatures were in the high 90s when the race started at 7 p.m. Despite the conditions, all four runners on the high school team finished the three-mile race.

“I keep telling them that cross country gives you the ability to build your ability to do hard things,” Gay said. “I think this really shows off the hard work. So every kid who crosses the finish line on a cool day, it didn’t come without hard work because you had several hot days in between.”

At the W-M Invitational, Jones was the Tigers’ top finisher, placing 19th with a personal-best time of 22:13 and came up four places short of a medal. Spiers finished 25th with a 26:31, Bradley came in 28th with a 29:04 and Nelson was 30th with a 31:25.

Jones ran in the 24-minute range in the last four meets before turning in his personal-best effort at the W-M course.

“In all of those races, I was trying to get over that 24 minute time,” Jones said. “I couldn’t do it. I’m really glad that I finally did it here. It’s a nice race to beat my time.”

Gay said she was ecstatic that TRXC Timing provided the results of this year’s W-M Invitational. In the past years, results were recorded manually.

“They were amazing,” the first-year coach said. “They make everything so easy, so they come and they give you the coaches’ packets. Then, they set everything up. They’re super great to work with.”

The Tigers competed in five meets this season. Their next meet is scheduled for Oct. 6 at the Hermann Invitational.