A lot of fall sports teams have preseason traditions, such as team dinners or midnight practices. Not many so anything like the Poland Regional High School cross country team, which backflips and cannon balls into a muddy bog in the middle of the forest.

On Friday, the Knights finished a hot and sweaty 3-mile run around campus with the celebratory bog party before running back to hose down and de-mud.

Runners from every grade cheered and encouraged each other to completely submerge themselves in mud and things eventually escalated to throwing trick moves off of a make-shift diving board.

“We have this tradition running in the mud; we really like to do some extreme things together,” Knights coach Sean Galipeau-Elridge said. “It’s a really good opportunity for some team bonding. We have to help each other through some of it, since it’s so thick, so it’s a fantastic way for us to have fun together when we work so hard.”

Galipeau-Elridge said the team has honored the start of season this way for as long as he can remember. They even leave some mementos like running shoes and socks behind — unintentionally — in the quickly submerging mud.