Cross country teams take strides to pursue state meet qualification

The school's cross country teams are gearing up for a season of hard runs in an effort to qualify for the state meet.

Sport: Cross Country

Coach: Danny Moon & Peter Jordan

Last season's recap: Members from both the boys’ and the girls’ teams were mostly able to set at least one personal record during meets. The top runners ended the season earning fourth place at CCS, but an unexpected turn of events, which included several runners getting sick that day, hindered the team from qualifying for states.

Star athletes: seniors Andrew Harter, Valerie Lensch, Carolyn Qi, Christine Schlossareck and Steven Sum, juniors Kimberly Chen, Ashley Chen, Kevin Duong-le, Stephen Law and Matthew Peterson, sophomores Alice Bian and Nicholas Sum

Key additions: freshmen Allison Borch, Amit Nag and Lillian Zeng

Key matchups: CCS @ Crystal Springs, Belmont (Nov. 15), CIF State Meet @ Fresno (Nov. 29)

Goals for season: “Our main goal [for the girls] is to make sure nobody gets injured, which is hard to do, improve every single meet and get better [over the course of the season],” Moon said. “[We look] for people to strive and excel so that they do their very best and at the very end, [our ultimate goal] is to do very well on the last two meets.”

“[This summer, we ran] around nine miles [a day] with one 10-mile day on Saturday,” Harter said. “Our average run mile pace went from around 7:45 [from] last year to [around] 7:15 this year. Our main goal as a [boys] team is [to enter] the state meet up in Fresno — only the top three [teams] make it, and we have just missed it and gotten fourth at CCS two years in a row.”