HELENA — On Tuesday afternoon, two Helena High cross country runners, Rylie Schoenfeld and Naomi Sweeney signed to their respective colleges to continue their cross country careers.
Schoenfeld will be continuing her career at Rocky Mountain College. She’s excited to stay in Montana and stated “I love Montana, running here is awesome”.
She also stated that running at Helena High has prepared her to continue in college.
“Our excellent coaches have paved the way for us to be really successful,” she said.
Sweeney had different goals when it came to continuing her running career, unlike Schoenfeld, she was determined to run out-of-state. She was specifically hoping to run somewhere in Oregon or Washington, and she accomplished just that.
Sweeney will be attending Pacific University Oregon. She loved her experience when she toured the university in January, and ended up getting a full-tuition scholarship, stating “I’m really hyped to run there”.
Sweeney mentioned that it was her coaches and teammates that actually made her realize how great her passion was for running and that she wanted to continue to do it in college.
While searching for her dream school, she was focused on academics first and looking at athletics second, admitting that she doesn’t mind that she’ll be running at the D3 level. “Pacific just ended up having great academics and athletics. I talked with the coach and it all worked out,” she said.
