By Heather Carr, Staff Writer
The Fountain Valley cross-country teams started their season strong, with the boys team competing in the Great Cow Run in Cerritos Regional Park and the girls team at the Fastback Shootout Invitational in Walnut on the famous Mt. SAC course, last Saturday.
Both teams were satisfied with their results, and although there were a few mishaps, their teams’ overall performances reflected what they perceived to be a good sign for the start of the season.
At the Great Cow Run in Cerritos, the boys battled against some of the highest ranked teams in the state, on the flat, grassy, three-mile course around the park.
“That was one of my hardest races… It was hot, it was late in the day,” said Matthew Messick (’17), who although faced the unfavorable weather along with the rest of his teammates, medaled for the first time in his running career.
The varsity team ran a total time of 1:20:59, and although William Hua (’16) ran a blazing personal record of 15:22 and placed 14th in their race, some of the team were dissatisfied with their results.
However, the frosh-soph team surpassed expectations with three sophomores under 17 minutes, and five freshmen under 19 minutes for the course.
“I honestly don’t know what I did,” Jonathan Guevara (’17) said. “After that first mile I thought in my head ‘I got to just pass some people,’ and that’s what I did the entire race.”
Guevara received fourth place in the sophomore race and ran a 16:38 and was the top runner in his squad.
In spite of a few disappointing finishes, the Barons showed signs of improvement from last year on all levels, and are more concerned with running well at meets that are more significant and continuing to improve as the year progresses.
“There are a lot of races, and nobody cares how you do in Great Cow if you are not going to perform in League Finals or even CIF,” Coach J.D. Krawczyk said. “What we need to take away from this is: we have some room for improvement and that we aren’t just anywhere near rested.”
Half an hour away in the foot hills of Walnut Valley, the girls team competed at Fastback Shootout near Mount San Antonio College, where they went head to head against teams from across southern California over the 1.9 miles of the famous (and hilly) three-mile cross-country course.
“I think it was difficult, but overall, I think we did pretty well, and nobody walked,” Elizabeth Diaz Cortes (’16) said. “I think that everyone put in their best effort… I’m really excited to improve and see that [training] paid off [later in the season].”
Like the boys, the girls team showed strong individual performances, particularly among the freshmen squad, where Savannah Bushman (’18) ran a time of 14:27 and Avani Salcedo (’18) ran a 14:33, both placing 15th and 23rd in their race of over a hundred runners, showing significant improvement in their times from earlier in the year during a two-mile fun run at Gahr High School.
“I think the team did really well today, the freshmen did good and they improved a lot from their Gahr races, and it was an overall good day,” Michelle Doan (’16) said.
Though the freshman team came out strong, the juniors, who were scheduled to run in the first heat of the day, arrived fifteen minutes before the start of their race. As a result, time for preparation was limited, and the Barons were forced to rush through their warm-up and stretches, skip strides and jog over to the starting line with only seconds to spare.
“I don’t think we had enough time to warm up, because when we came here, we had only fifteen minutes to warm up and stretch, so we didn’t have the chance to prepare as well as we could have,” Doan said.
However, the girls are optimistic for the rest of the season, and are excited for next Saturday, where they will compete in the Laguna Hills Invitational at Laguna Hills High School.
“I feel like it’s going to be a great year, with a lot of great performances, so it should be a good season,” Doan said.
