Heat concerns delay opening of ACHS cross country season
Anderson County High School’s cross country teams were supposed to open the 2023 season Thursday afternoon in a two-mile race at Knoxville’s Victor Ashe Park.
But the Mavericks and Lady Mavericks didn’t compete and ACHS was one of several schools that opted to skip the meet due to near-record heat that scalded East Tennessee late last week.
“I made an executive decision and we canceled,” Anderson County Coach Derek Wallace said. “I think two-thirds of the schools canceled because of the heat index.
“I just didn’t think it was worth it for our kids to have to go through two or three days of recovery, so we practiced instead.”
Throughout the 2023 campaign, the Mavericks and Lady Mavericks will compete on Saturday mornings, as Wallace wants to see how his athletes respond to early start times.
“I’m more interested in seeing how we respond for a 9 a.m. start than seeing how we respond to a start time of 4 o’clock in the afternoon,” he said. “We had a good three days of practice and I didn’t see the point of our kids feeling like crap for two or three days.”
The Mavericks and Lady Mavericks will now open their season Saturday, Sept. 2, at Victor Ashe Park in the Fall Classic. Action gets underway at 9 a.m.