Skylar Manatt and Dylan Powell, these two young men are the top two runners on the Cypress Creek High School Boy’s

Team. While Skylar may be a freshman, and Dylan is a senior, both boys have lowered their 5k race times’ to be under 16 minutes and placed within the top 50 in states. Every meet, both Skylar and Dylan are always close in times during cross country meets. But their history with each other is not the biggest between each other even though they somewhat knew each other. 

 We spoke with Skylar and Dylan about their experiences on the cross-country team and what it is like to run against each other. Dylan said, “I knew coming in that he was going to be faster and right with me and we get to train together and stuff and it really pushes both of us to be better.” While Skylar said that it is good to have someone there to push him because while in middle school there was nobody there to push him. While on the topic of their feelings for each other we asked them if they considered each other as rivals and Dylan said, “Nobody wants to lose to someone else but one of us have to lose so we went back and forth all year.” While Skylar said that he would not consider Dylan as a rival but more as a motivator, he explains “Like when I slow down Dylan would increase the speed and vis versa…. we take turns taking each set and each rep, which we also do in races.” Since they practice with each other and are competitive during race we asked Dylan how he feels when and if Skylar passes him, Dylan said that there was not really a spot where Skylar passed him until closer to the end of the season where Skylar began running faster than Dylan, and Dylan knew that he could not catch back up with Skylar. We also asked Skylar how he felt when he lost to Dylan, and he said, “it motivates me… because I want to be faster.”  

Both Skylar Manatt and Dylan Powell are two young men on the CCHS Cross Country team who have both lowered their personal best times to be under 16 minutes. Both Skylar and Dylan are competitive with each other trying to push each other to be better during practices, meets and workouts. Despite Skylar being a freshman and Dylan being a senior, Skylar as the season progressed was able to keep up and pass Dylan and finish his season with a time of 15:35 compared to Dylan’s time of 15:54. In the end, the young Skylar Manatt beat the old Dylan Powell.