The girls cross country season has come to close following the Patriot Conference Championship meet. The girls ran in over 10 different competitive meets throughout the season against many Patriot Conference rivals. 

The team had success this year with many runners breaking personal records and setting new personal best times. 

“This cross country season we were all able to drop our times and beat our personal records in most of the races,” junior Janice Milian said.

The improvement was not only with the team as a whole but also individual improvement.

“My biggest success this season was breaking my personal record at the conference meet by almost one minute,” sophomore Vitalina Fuentes said. 

Girls cross country and track head coach Phil Harris has been impressed with the performance of the team this cross country season. 

There has been drastic progress made with most of the runners from last season.

“One of the best performances I have seen from the girls cross country team has come this year,” Harris said. 

“All of the girls who made it to the conference meet last year and made it again to the meet this year, their personal best times have dropped an average of a minute and a half,” Harris said.

This drop in personal record times among runners is much improved when compared to the average drops in best times from past seasons.

“Most of the time personal records drop about 30 to 40 seconds between seasons, but this year that has improved dramatically,” Harris said.

Although many of the girls will miss the season ending,  there are some things they will not miss.

“I feel sad that the season is over but I’m not going to miss running in the heat for most of the season because that was horrible,” Fuentes said. 

With the start of many winter sports coming soon, one sport that many girls that ran cross country will also be participating in is indoor track. 

“I feel like that indoor track is going to be easier than cross country this year because there is less running in the meets,” Fuentes said. 

Many girls are excited for and eager for the indoor season to begin.

“I feel ready and really excited to be going into the indoor track season this year,” Milian said. 

The team last year had some success during indoor track, however due to the shorter length of the season and the decreased number of meets, there was not much time for improvement.

The girls look to work harder during practice in preparation for meets. 

The girls will also be setting new goals for themselves to accomplish during indoor track. 

“My goal for this season is break six minutes for my mile time,” Fuentes said. 

Many runners also look to improve personal record times in certain events during the indoor track season.

“A goal I have for this year is to drop my mile time and hopefully have a personal record of at least 5:30 in the mile by the end of the indoor track season,” Milian said. 

Efforts put in by the team during the cross country season are important to the indoor track season because improvements made during cross country carry over to the track season. 

“One of the goals we have as a team is to keep on running because whatever the team does during the cross country season will definitely carry over to the indoor and outdoor track seasons and have a positive effect,” Harris said. 

In the indoor track season last year, the team came close to breaking significant school records in some events but fell short in the end. 

The team looks to pick up where they left off last year and continue to progress and possibly break certain records.

“Last year we came close to breaking some records in different events in indoor track and I can assure some records are going to fall this year,” Harris said. 

“An example of a record we look to break would be the girls 4×4 relay. We came close to breaking that record last year, but this year the girls are focused to set a new record in that event,” Harris said.

The team looks for overall improvement  for the whole team.

“We are trying to have everybody improve and make the team a lot better as a whole,” Harris said.

The team will soon begin to have practices and work hard for meets coming up this season.