• More Cowbell Invite is Thursday afternoon in Afton.

For fans of the distance runners, they will need to be out in force this Thursday, August 24, for the program’s lone home event of the season, titled the More Cowbell Invite.

The races will start with the girls at 4:15 p.m. at Star Valley View Golf Course with the boys race to follow. The teams confirmed to compete include Mountain View, Evanston, Soda Springs and Bear Lake.

“We have good numbers,” said head coach Ty Draney. “The kids have worked hard over the summer. Usually those are directly proportional and it’s always nice to bust some rust and shake off the cobwebs so we’re looking forward to it.”

According to Draney the program has 53 athletes in all at this point.

“For a while there we had more girls than boys which had not been the case in a long time,” he said. “The boys aren’t the young guns anymore and have a target on their back so we’re trying to manage all that. We’ll know a lot more in a month or two.”

The Braves return all five point-scorers and the individual champion from last year’s state championship.

The race will be set up as it was when it hosted the Wyoming State Championships three years ago but there will be some differences as teased by the name of the meet.

“We will be doing places only,” Draney added. “We are not including a finish time. We have a few extra things like a King of the Hill competition. Prizes for the first runner to the top of the hill. There will be awards for predicting their time and the top ten runners in each race will get custom cowbells.”

In addition, the team with the lowest combined score will take home the coveted Christopher Walken Trophy.

The theme is borrowed from a Saturday Night Live sketch in which Christopher Walken plays rock icon, Bruce Dickinson, and demands that the band, The Blue Oyster Cult, play with more cowbell.

The program will be running at Soda Springs on September 2 at the Cardinal Classic.