The Florida State College at Jacksonville (FSCJ) Cross Country team entered the 2021 season with high hopes after a very successful 2020 season. Two new faces to the team are looking to help bring the BlueWave home another NJCAA national championship appearance. Freshman Hailey Smith and Sophomore Axl Linsner both have an interesting background and look to bring something special to their team.

Hailey was born in Gurnee, IL and attended high school at Warren Township High School. Like many others, she started doing cross country in middle school with some friends. Shortly after joining cross country and through middle school, Hailey quickly learned that she loved the sport and wanted to keep it up in high school, even though her friend did not continue running. Even though this is her eighth year competitively running, Hailey's last race was in November of 2019.. "Once I moved to Florida, I was not able to join the team because I did not move until October, so most of the season was over". "I knew how much I missed it", Hailey continues. Now that she is at the biggest level of competition in her life, Hailey is learning how to transition from high school to college. "It's just a completely different atmosphere to practice [and compete] in". Now that she is back in the swing of things with running, she wants to be able to work hard, help the team be as successful as possible, and get back into the "race day" atmosphere of competing that she used to get so excited for.

Axl Linsner is from Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan and attended Circle High School in Towanda, KS. Axl may be a Sophomore in college, but this is his first season competing at the collegiate level for Cross Country. Axl's last cross country race was his senior year of high school (fall 2019). The entire track season in 2020 was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Focusing on school his freshman year of college, Axl decided to take a year away from cross country, but says he missed competing too much to not return in his sophomore year of college. "One thing that got me back to cross country is moving to a different state. I knew no one, so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to make friends and get to know people", mentions Axl on what made him return to the sport. When asked what some of his goals are for the upcoming season, Axl answers, "Honestly to run to the best of my ability; and to place top 10 at nationals as a team"

Both Hailey and Axl had strong performances at Valdosta State and look to continue those strong performances as the weeks lead up to the NJCAA Region 8 Championship at Apalachee Park in Tallahassee Florida on October 29^th and the NJCAA National Cross-Country Championships November 13^th in Richmond Virginia.