All-Bi-City cross country winners are no strangers to success

Neither Northside's Austin Kidd nor Columbus' Alina Salgado are new to success in cross country around the area.

Both have been among the area's best for the past couple of years. Salgado, in fact, was the 2014 girls runner of the year for Ledger-Enquirer All-Bi-City team.

She defended her title well in 2015 and is once again the girls runner of the year, while Kidd joins her as the boys.

Salgado's coach at Columbus, Danielle McCoy, earned the top coaching honor on the girls side after a 13th-place finish at state, and Smiths Station boys coach Ron Peters earned coach of the year for the boys after facing major turnover in his runners and still finishing in sixth at state.

Individually, Kidd was simply the area's best. His best time of the year was 16:19 and he finished in 10th at the state competition after winning at regions.

He said it's taken a lot of work to get him to where he is, and he's tried to pass on that knowledge and drive to those coming after him at Northside.

"For me to be a senior on the team and show some of the underclassmen what it takes to get to this point," he said. "I wasn't given the opportunity. I had to take it and make it. I got to where I am by working hard and

showing an example to everybody."

Salgado's best time was 20:07 this year, and she finished 35th overall at state. She said she loved the competitive side of cross country, but also considered it just a fun way to maintain fitness.

"I enjoy having a sport where I can compete," she said. "Just doing something for myself. I run because I want to. At times with a heavy course load, it can be difficult. But everything from eating right to getting workouts in -- it's shown progress."

Her coach isn't new to success either. McCoy was last season's coach of the year, and defended her title as well. This year, she led Columbus to a 13th-place finish at state and a first-place finish at regions.

"We just had two strong leaders to rely on," McCoy said. "It was just a lot of building all year, and we had two senior leaders running at state. That's where our success comes from."

Peters, meanwhile, had to deal with a lot of youth on his 2015 squad. Only one varsity runner from 2014 returned in 2015, giving him a lot to work on over the offseason, but the team still found a way to finish sixth in the Class 7A state competition in Alabama with nine out of 10 runners setting personal records at the meet.

The success all started during the summer, Peters said.

"We had a huge turnaround and the younger guys didn't have all that valuable experience from past years," he said. "Some young guys just really committed this summer. A lot of it was a surprise. Once we got the program sort of figured out, come october everything started clicking."

This story was originally published December 25, 2015 at 9:46 PM with the headline "All-Bi-City cross country winners are no strangers to success ."