Whether or not things have gone as planned, the late season grind is here for fall sports.

Preseason projections fall to the wayside as teams begin to size up postseason chances. That certainly can be said for football, which has two games left in its regular season, and it also applies to cross-country, which has about three weeks to go until the annual state meet hosted by Northwestern State in Natchitoches.

For Denham Springs, which finished in the top 10 of both the boys and girls state meets last year, the challenge has been to stay healthy. There have been lineup changes and adjustments on the fly, but the Yellow Jackets appear to be back on track.

Denham Springs swept the boys and girls titles at last week's Livingston Parish meet. For the girls, the good news was that Lila Silk competed for the first time this season, and ran under 20 minutes with a first-place time of 19:47.75.

The Yellow Jackets took four of the next five finishing places to claim the top team prize.

In the boys competition, Hunter Voisin won with a time of 16:39.08. He was followed by four of his teammates, but it wasn't all good news.

Two Yellow Jackets runners, Tramell Pete and Brayden Jones, had minor injuries during the race and opted not to finish. It was another set of injury circumstances to deal with for a team that had already lost two of its top runners to season-ending injuries.

Denham Springs coach Cortney Haser said both of her teams have been resilient.

"You always wonder what the season could have been, but with the adversity we've had its caused others to step up," Haser said. "If our hand had been different then maybe that wouldn't have happened. These boys have really stepped up in response."

Other top runners for the Denham Springs boys have been Jayden Henriquez and Liam Calhoun. For the girls, who had four runners out at the start of the season, top competitors after Silk are expected to be C.C. Sprouse, Isabella Maldonado and Sophia Wilkes.

For now, the Yellow Jackets will focus on two upcoming meets at Highland Road Park. The first is this week's East Baton Rouge Metro meet. Then, on Nov. 6, qualifying for state will be on the line at the Division I, Region 2 meet.

Here's hoping the Yellow Jackets are healthy enough to compete to the best of their capabilities.