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Warriors the little team that could

By DAWN REISS
Published November 10, 2006

LECANTO - Paige Cooke cracks a smile.

A few months ago, she and the rest of her Seven Rivers Christian teammates would never have dreamed of going to the state championship. Last year they didn't even have a big enough team to officially compete.

"I would have laughed if anyone had mentioned state," Cooke said.

But that's exactly where the eighth-grader and the Warriors - seniors Elizabeth Finney and Ashley Coogle, freshman Jenna Coogle, eighth-graders Lacey Gough and Jasmine Grey and sixth-grader Chloe Benoist - are going Saturday for the first time.

Kerri Kitchen, an avid runner and wife of Crystal River mayor Ron Kitchen, started the program three years ago as a trial.

Last year the squad consisted of five girls and three boys. This year it's all female.

Kitchen helped convince Jenna Coogle, who doesn't enjoy running, to join the squad so they would have enough to compete. "She was waiting for me after practice anyways," her older sister Ashley said.

"Despite her dislike of the sport, Jenna takes pride in finishing every run. Even if it means crying in pain around the track.

"But I finish," she said. "You never quit."

Benoist leads the group with the fastest female time in the county. She ran "unofficially" with the Warriors last year as a fifth-grader and has dropped her 3.25-mile time by more than a minute to 20:04.

The Warriors had a strong showing against Class 2A public school opponents like Citrus and Lecanto, but never realized how good they were until the Class A, District 3 meet. With 19 schools, the girls didn't think they had a chance to advance. As the lower finishing teams were awarded prizes, the Warriors began to think something was wrong.

When Seven Rivers was announced as the third-place finisher behind Trinity Prep and Geneva School, mouths were gaping. The Warriors were surprised again at regionals. Most of the girls had left the meet, sure there wasn't the slightest possibility of advancing. Seven Rivers earned the final team spot. Grey had to call her teammates.

"My parents thought she was joking," Ashley Coogle said with a laugh. "They even called Coach Kitchen to double check everything that night."

"I just feel really blessed," Kitchen said. "That our little school, our little girls teams, is going to state. It's just awesome."

[Last modified November 9, 2006, 22:34:07]