The girls’ varsity cross country team and junior Thomas McCarthy competed at the WIAA division two state meet on Saturday, Nov. 2. The girls’ team placed 12th overall, and McCarthy placed 19th.
“I think we did really well. We all worked together mostly,” junior Ashlyn Strebelinski said. “I feel that each one of us was competing with each other and that we did well together.”
The chance to run in a state meet is a great opportunity for students, but is not the only important aspect of the sport.
“The meet went well. I think the best part of the meet was the exposure the kids got, not necessarily the times they ran but because they’ve never experienced running with this many great runners,” Head Coach Roberto Lara said.
The opportunity to run in a state meet was a positive experience for many of the athletes.
“It was a great experience. I was glad I could go with the team I did,” sophomore Abigail Shattuck said. “It was my first time going to state for cross country and it was just a lot of fun.”
But, the success was not built in one meet. Riding off of the season’s work, the athletes laid off the gas to be fresh for their meets.
“We peaked them physically for sectionals, because we made no assumptions about making state,” Lara said. “We wanted them to feel the best possible race for sectionals, anything after that was like extra credit. We basically just tapered. It means you’re not working out super super hard, you’re just maintaining the same fitness. So no extra work was added.”
Although no extra work was added, some of the workouts were changed to better prepare the runners for the meet’s difficult course.
“We’ve done a lot of hill workouts and stuff as a team, and we do a lot of pack running in practice,” Shattuck said. “I feel that during the race a lot of us had people we were running with, like I was running with Katara a lot of the race and it helped us to run as a team.”
Last year, only one athlete went to state from the cross country team, alumna Emma Boegh. This year, eight went.
“I truly believe a lot of it is the buy in. Last year I had one very very hard worker on the girls’ side, that was Emma Boegh,” Lara said. “She did all the right things. This year I had multiple girls buy in, so it’s the buy in, not necessarily the workouts that are special.”
Competing in a state meet can be intimidating, but the team’s practices and early success made it easier to handle by building up their confidence.
“Our first non-official meet we took first and we were like ‘woah, that’s pretty cool,’ and then we just kept continuing to get first or second and it continued to build our confidence,” Strebelinski said. “As our season continued we gained more confidence and I felt like we got better as a team.”
The cross country season ended successfully for the team, with a conference win for the girls.
“We’ve won a lot of meets, we did very well, people ran their fastest times,” Lara said. “I would say it was just a very successful season.”