By Heather Carr, Staff Writer
The cross-country team competed at the Orange County Championships at Irvine Regional Park in Irvine last Saturday, where they planned to make an impression against a field that included some of the top-ranked schools in southern California; Their efforts to do so on nearly all levels, however, were met with disappointment, especially from the varsity squads.
“From watching the sophomore race and participating in the freshman race, it is unfortunate to conclude that we didn’t perform as well as we, or our coaches, expected,” said Thomas Akiona (’18). “On a scale of one to ten, our performance ranking would be an easy four or five, compared to our normal score of five to seven.”
The boys varsity team placed fourteenth in the sweepstakes race, and gave no comment on their performance. Both the JV and freshman teams placed ninth in their races, and the sophomores placed fifth overall.
“Personally, I didn’t attend the course preview like many of my teammates, and therefore I didn’t devise a particular strategy [For the race],” Akiona continued. “However, many of my teammates did attend the course preview and did devise strategies specific to their performance expectations.”
On the girls team, the varsity squad also disappointed after placing seventh in their race.
“My race strategy was to go out and conserve my strength and not to go out too slow when it’s better for me to go out faster and maintain that pace,” recalled Kristen Prado (’17), who had placed sixth on the squad after running the course for the first time.
“Everyone did okay, but I think we could have done better than they normally do. I don’t know if they did or not, but I felt like I could have done better.”
On the other hand, the JV and frosh soph levels were satisfied with their efforts.
“Besides missing some of our strong frosh soph girls, we still had a really solid race,” said Coach Crystal. “Definitely enough going into the end of the season and league [finals].”
Hayley McClements (’15), who had ran on the JV squad, agreed. “I think everyone was happy with their finishing time, and they did okay starting out and it was really hard at the end with the incline at the hill but everyone pushed through it,” She reported “…It was solid, it wasn’t the greatest, but it was solid.”
Though in spite of dissatisfaction with the results from a few teams, the Barons are looking forward to finishing strong towards the end of the season at League Finals in several weeks, and with the season coming to a close, many have also expressed it as bittersweet in regards to how fast it seemed to have gone by.
“It is somewhat heartbreaking to know that our 2014 XC Season will soon be coming to a close,” Akiona said. “My teammates and I can all easily agree that this past season (and all of the races it included) was an extraordinary one, and it is saddening to see it ending ever so quickly.”
