Cross country is entering the season after winning a state championship and is looking to recreate similar success in the new season.
Last season, both the boys’ and girls’ topped off extremely productive seasons with Maryland 3A State Championships, despite people’s low expectations. “Last season went pretty well. We won the state meet and were not projected to so we proved a lot of people wrong,” senior captain Nathan Downie said.
Maintaining this success may be difficult since the boys’ lost three of their top five runners in class of 2025 graduates: Rendon Yerman, Edward Sun and Ellis Eppard. “[It] definitely hurts us immensely but our team culture is good and we have the younger guys stepping up to hopefully fill the shoes of the guys we lost. We have a lot of talent this year and hopefully we can bring it all together at the end,” Downie said.
On Aug. 21, cross country ran a two-mile timed trial to prepare for the season. Downie was especially happy with what he saw from the younger runners. “Lots of younger guys did well and it proved they had all been working hard over the summer,” Downie said.
As a team captain, Downie said it is important to lead the team by improving his own times. “Individually, I would love to run faster and and this year I believe I’ll be able to run a lot faster and hopefully lead the team to do great things,” Downie said.
Although the team has high hopes for the upcoming season, Downie also emphasizes the importance of staying disciplined. “We always want and expect more, so we just have to stay focused and disciplined. I believe we can go further than we did last year and possibly qualify for the national meet,” Downie said.
On Sept. 10, cross country faced Churchill for their first meet of the season. The boys’ fell to the Bulldogs in a close race. “It’s early in the season and I am recovering from an injury. We need a lot of improvement as a team,” senior captain Luke Gabrielle said.
The girls were also bested by Churchill, but senior captain Charlotte Chang views the loss as a strong learning experience. “We definitely need some work on running together and staying motivated throughout the 5k, but I think we can do it,” Chang said.
Cross country’s next meet is scheduled to take place on Sept. 24, when they will take on Whitman. “My goal for the team is to have the girls be closer together in time. It would be great to have the top five within one or two minutes of each other,” Chang said.
Between now and then, the team will also participate in invitationals. On Aug. 20, they will race at Bull Run Invitational at Hereford High School.
