Gahanna Lincoln's girls cross country team hit the course Monday evening for the annual 2 Mile Time Trial, the first competitive action of the 2026 season for a program defending its first-ever state championship.

The time trials, held at 7 p.m. Aug. 3, marked the official start of the fall campaign for head coach Ryan Callihan's squad. The boys cross country team also ran trials the same evening. Gahanna Lincoln Athletics announced the event on X, tagging the post with "#DefendTheShip," a nod to the program's championship pedigree.

That pedigree is fresh. The Lions won the OHSAA Division I state title on Nov. 1, 2025, at Fortress Obetz, finishing with 81 points and beating runner-up Hilliard Davidson by 55, according to the Columbus Dispatch. It was the first girls cross country state championship in program history.

The 2026 squad will look different at the front of the pack. Ruby Lewis, who led the state title team with a sixth-place finish (18:06.65) and committed to Ohio State, graduated last spring. Olivia Smeck, who placed 24th at state, was also a senior and has moved on. Abigail Young (11th at state), Jillian Gomez (23rd), and Dylan Yost (50th) rounded out the top five scorers in November. Gomez enters her junior year this fall; the returning status of Young and Yost has not been confirmed.

Callihan, named OCC-Ohio Coach of the Year after the championship season, returns with assistant coaches David Long and Megan Tamasovich, both approved by the Gahanna-Jefferson Board of Education on June 18. Assistant coach Madeline Foster resigned after the 2025-26 school year.

"These girls have been so consistent, so tough. They do everything we ask. They believe in what we are coaching," Callihan said after the state championship win in November 2025. "They did exactly what they needed to do."

The Lions are also defending back-to-back OCC All-Sports Ralph Young Awards after recording 11 first-place conference finishes across all sports in 2025-26. This fall marks the first full athletic season in the new Gahanna Lincoln High School, the nearly 500,000-square-foot building that opened Jan. 10.

No individual results from Monday's time trials have been published. The team heads to Mohican Adventures Camp in Loudonville, Ohio, Tuesday through Tuesday, Aug. 4-6, before the regular-season schedule begins.