By Kevin Green
Eat, sleep, run and repeat.
That is the motto for many cross-country runners around the nation. After all, repetition is one of the most important keys to success in cross-country. Not only must athletes be exceptional in their fitness, but also in their health.
For three varsity runners on the Stillwater High School boys’ cross-country team, there is one thing missing from that list.
Soccer.
Along with cross-country, Vlad Munteanu, Micah Hermann and Wes Kinsey participate on a competitive soccer team.
The cross-country team practices twice every school day except for Fridays, and the soccer team requires two practices every week. All of that in addition to schoolwork makes for quite a busy schedule.
“It’s very difficult, especially since I have some [Advanced Placement] classes right now,” Hermann said. “I get a lot of homework, so it’s difficult. I kind of have to cut out social activities, stay up with my grades, which can be difficult. I get 20 pages of notes or so a day.”
The boys are members of a Stillwater Soccer Club team called APEX. The team plays in the U-17 age division. They have been on the team for four years, consistently helping the club accomplish goals.
“All three of us really enjoy playing soccer,” Munteanu said. “We started out as a [recreational] team just playing against older kids, and now we got into [Oklahoma Competitive League], which is kids our age who are pretty good, I’d say.”
APEX is the first Stillwater team to compete in the Southern Regional Premier League, which gathers the top four teams from Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi and enters them in a champions’ league bracket.
APEX coach Jeremy McReynolds said the team is not content with only competing in the league, and it is not satisfied with its performance.
“They competed in that this fall,” McReynolds said. “They were competitive in half of the games, and they struggled in the other half.”
The boys also won the President Cup four years ago with the team. Now, APEX is in OPL’s Gold division and is ranked second with a record of 4-3.
Munteanu, a sophomore, is optimistic about the team’s season.
“We’re doing pretty well in that,” Munteanu said. “I think we have a pretty good chance of winning it.”
Munteanu, Hermann and Kinsey have similar backgrounds in their soccer careers. They started playing the sport at 3, and have since built up their skills to a competitive level.
Munteanu’s story, in particular, stands out.
Munteanu started playing competitively five years ago when he and his family moved to Stillwater from Romania. He went to an Oklahoma State University spring soccer camp, and his participation gained the attention of an OSU coach.
Justin Elkington, assistant coach for the OSU women’s soccer team, witnessed Munteanu’s skills at the camp. Impressed, Elkington talked to McReynolds and told him to have Munteanu try out for McReynolds’ team.
McReynolds took Elkington’s advice, and now Munteanu is a valued member of the team.
Of course, because the cross-country and club soccer seasons overlap, prioritizing becomes a problem. They try to split the amount of events they go to for each team evenly, but sometimes their absences hurt both teams.
“It’s always a tough decision because I really like both sports,” Hermann said. “I have friends on both teams, so it’s always a really tough decision.”
Those tough decisions make people like Jay Ogle, a senior cross-country runner at Stillwater, frustrated and disappointed. With how much work the team puts in every week, Ogle feels everyone should be 100 percent dedicated to the cross-country team, but he does understand their situation, for most of the people on the team are involved in other activities.
“I have a lot of clubs and organizations I’m a part of, and a few of those guys are really committed to soccer as well,” Ogle said. “I wish they would commit a little more to cross-country, but I understand that they have teams they have dedicated time and effort to and would like to perform as much for them as they do for us.”
Earlier this season, Munteanu and Hermann, a junior, missed the Cowboy Jamboree, the Stillwater cross-country program’s home meet, opting to participate in a soccer tournament in Texas instead.
“It seemed like a really big [tournament] to be at,” Hermann said. “We never played in that league and we wanted a good showing, so I decided to go with soccer.”
Kinsey, a junior, chose to forgo the tournament because he plans to drop high school soccer in the spring and wants to focus on improving not only in cross-country, but also in track.
“The end of spring soccer last year, I decided that I would like to run track because I was fast at what they needed,” Kinsey said. “I ran the 800 [meters] and [4 x 800 relay] in track, and I was pretty good at it. I’ve always loved the 800, so I decided this year I’d rather give my time to getting really good in the 800 rather than playing soccer.”
Kinsey said his decision to choose cross-country more than soccer has paid off so far this season, for he has improved significantly from last year. He ran a personal best 19 minutes, 18 seconds in the 5K last season. This season, his fastest time is 17:52.
His success is something he hopes he can duplicate during track in the 800.
Without training, Kinsey clocked in at 2:12 in the 800, a time he considers “all right.” This year, Kinsey plans to run the 800 in two minutes or faster.
Munteanu said he has considered dropping club soccer, but not high school soccer because he said he believes his life would not be the same without soccer.
“I’ve been playing this sport since I was 3, and I enjoy every time I get the chance to play, so I could never erase soccer out of my life,” Munteanu said.
Luckily for Munteanu and Hermann, cross-country coach David Crynes has been flexible in allowing them to miss practices and meets, but Crynes said he believes their commitment to a varsity team should take precedence over club sports.
Although the Pioneers have a relatively average-sized boys’ roster with 24 runners, Munteanu, Hermann and Kinsey are three of the top four runners on the team, so missing any of them hurts the team significantly not only on race days, but also on practice days.
Every Saturday morning, the team meets to do long runs. Munteanu and Hermann’s absence creates an asymmetry with the other runners who show up at sunrise to run 10 miles.
“It’s difficult to get our team into a rhythm when we miss 2-3 of our top seven runners multiple times,” Crynes said. “Once our numbers grow and our program becomes more competitive, we won’t be so dependent on them.”
However, McReynolds said he believes the boys miss the same amount of events for both teams.
“We played in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, last weekend, and all three of those participated in a cross-country event in Arkansas,” McReynolds said. “That left us with 11 players and no subs.”
Regardless of whether all three boys decide on only one sport, it is all about having fun for Munteanu, Hermann and Kinsey. The way cross-country and soccer complement each other is what keeps them coming back for more.
“Cross-country helps me with stamina, but soccer did help a little bit, I think, because I stayed active the whole summer playing soccer, so when I showed up in the fall, that’s one thing, I feel like my teammates hadn’t been running the whole summer, where through soccer I had been staying active and staying fit,” Hermann said.