After a successful home meet on Oct. 10 the Powell Panther cross country team was set to head to the conference meet in Lander on Thursday, but following road cancellations due to weather and a closure of the race location the Panthers had an extra week off to prepare for the state meet this weekend in Cheyenne.

Powell makes the long trek to the capital on Saturday for the cross country championships at the Little America Golf Course.

Participating for the girls’ team will be Karee Cooley, Shelby Zickefoose, Anyston Keller, Melissa Merritt, Kaytlee George, Eleasah Horsley and Kara Sanders, while Landyn Horsley will be the alternate.

“In the girls’ team race, Cody has proven all year that they are the team to beat,” coach Ashley Hildebrand said. “We know that anything can happen at state and after coming within two points of them at our home meet, our girls are excited and ready to race this weekend.”

Those participating for the boys’ team will be Korbyn Warren, Colin Walker, Nathan Varian, Channing Wenzel, Michael Stensing, Alex Werner and Troy Cheatham, while Ben Smith will be the alternate.

“Our boys’ team has started putting up some really good times in the last few weeks and we think they are capable of being in the hunt for a trophy,” Hildebrand said.

This will be the third consecutive year the state meet will be held in Cheyenne and the second straight year at the Little America Golf Course. Hildebrand is excited for the team to get out on the course once again.

“We are looking forward to running in Cheyenne,” she said. “We are running on the same course that we did last year, so most of our runners are familiar with it and ran really well last year. We will also preview the course on Friday afternoon to get a feel for it.”

Hildebrand said she and the coaching staff are confident in the returning athlete’s abilities, while the younger runners continue to improve with each passing race.

“We are confident that our returning state competitors will be able to improve upon what they did last year coming off of another year of racing experience,” Hildebrand said. “Our younger runners keep getting better and better, and we look to them to race well as they have gained experience and confidence throughout the season.”

Races start at 10:30 a.m. with the 4A boys and will go in descending order of classes, as the 3A boys are scheduled for an 11 a.m. race start and the girls are scheduled for a 12:30 p.m. start.