The boys team, who placed first in the varsity race last year, had achieved a solid third place ranking at the event. Though this positioned them among the top three teams likely to move on to CIF Prelims after the Sunset League Finals in November, the some of the Barons met their results with disappointment.
“Instead of what we were supposed to be doing I feel like a lot of people dropped the ball, that they didn’t do what what they were supposed to do,” Kenneth Barrios (’15) said. “I feel like that there were some good things that did happen today, [but] there was a lot more of mediocrity that happened.”
The frosh-soph team placed second in their level, and, according to runner Thomas Akiona (’18), a limited warm-up time and several of the course’s major inclines were factors that contributed to the team’s mixed reactions on their overall performance.
“In general, I think that we could have done better, but I mean, we did pretty good,” said Akiona. “At least some of us did good, some of us kind of bombed it. In all honesty, our warm-up was like twenty-five minutes, and so I think that that had a lot to do with it. Also, it was kind of a hard warm-up.”
“The hill was a major obstacle, Edward’s Hill [A dirt hill that with a steep incline near the two-mile time], and I think at that point it felt like we were reaching our spot of
weakness,” Akiona continued. “So we pushed through it, but that took a lot of us.”
On the girls side, varsity had placed fifth in their race, and gave no comment on their performance. However, luck favored the lower levels, where on the frosh-soph squad, Lynn Vo (’17) led the team to victory in a time of 21:28, with Kristen Prado not far behind running a 22:00. The JV team also placed third, and according to Kim Echegoye (’17), the team was generally pleased with their efforts.
“JV did pretty well and got third overall, which is good considering we didn’t have many girls,” Echegoye said.
The Barons are looking forward to running fast later in the season in spite of their lackluster responses to their races at Preview, yet remain unsure of how they will compete in future meets.
“To say that I’m excited is kind of up in the air at this point because I don’t know how I’m going to feel for the rest of the season,” Barrios said. “I really hope the team can for one, win Sunset League, but I [also] for hope the team, that every individual runner gets that time that they want.”
This Saturday, the cross-country team will be returning to the course again to host it’s largest fundraising event of the year, the Central Park Invitational, in which dozens of schools from across southern California and even from other states will travel to compete.
