The Great Bend High School cross country team travels to Newton for the Class 5A regional meet on Saturday.
The girls race begin at 2 p.m., and the boys follow at 2:30.
Competition for the girls will focus on Valley Center, according to GBHS head coach Todd Kaiser.
“Valley Center will be a really good team,” Kaiser said. “I think we match up with them very well. Regional champ and regional runner up will probably be between the two of us.
“We both have a couple of really good runners and the rest of our team matches up very well. We are very similar teams.”
Kaitlynn Tuey leads the Great Bend girls. She finished in fourth place at the Western Athletic Conference meet with a time of 16 minutes, 16 seconds, earning her all-conference status.
On the boys side, Liberal is the favorite.
“I think that Liberal will be the team that will be regional champion,” Kaiser said. “After that, there are three teams that will be challenging for the final two spots, us, Newton and Hays.
“We ran against Newton at El Dorado, and I think at Rim Rock (Farm, outside of Lawrence). We beat them both times, but we can’t take them lightly.”
The boys are led by Chon Chavez, who qualified for the state meet last season and was selected as an All-WAC runner this season.
Chavez’s best time this year was 16:51 at El Dorado.