Today is Friday, February 10, 2012
Today is Friday, February 10, 2012
The JV team has significantly increased in size as the varsity cross country team looks to qualify for CCS championships with improved results.
The cross country team welcomed an increase in new runners this year. Compared to last season’s team of 88 members, this season’s team is 100 members strong. The team is now the largest in the El Camino Division II League.
“It’s always more fun to have more people to train with,” Coach PattiSue Plumer said. “It’s always so festive out here for our team.”
The large number of people has influenced training. Last year there was a separation between faster varsity-level runners and slower JV-level runners. This year, the increase has allowed the team to form a middle group for training purposes.
According to junior Peter Wang, coordination is “very hard” due to the massive number of people. With significantly larger training groups, runners also receive less time with Plumer.
The increase in numbers is an increase in fast runners.
“Last year there were only about 10 boys who went sub- 19 [minutes],” Peter said. “This year, there are 25.”
Plumer is pleased because the increase has brought many talented kids, which she said gives the depth that the team has not had in the past.
The team has also had an increase in the number of girls. According to Plumer, since the school offers a wide selection of fall season sports for girls, it has been difficult to interest girls to join cross country.
This year, however, there were enough members to create the girls freshman-sophomore team.
The cross country team attended the Crystal Springs meet on Thursday, October 8. During the season, Crystal Springs holds an unofficial meet, a practice meet the actual meet and League Finals. Since the weekday October 8 race was the practice meet, the cross country team “ stacked , ” placing faster juniors and seniors in the junior race, and other juniors in the sophomore race.
Senior Eric Safai finished first, junior Ben Schneider finished second and junior Mikey Vendelin finished fifth in the boys junior division. Senior Erin Hicks finished first in the girls junior division.
Based on the Crystal Springs’ results, many runners are optimistic about the team’s chances for doing well in the next Crystal Springs meet later on in the season.
According to Plumer, it is important for the team to go out of the region to gain the correct perspective on its ability. Since cross country is divided by location, the team always competes with the same schools.
“Not only do we have three of the best teams of SCVAL in our league … CCS sent three teams from our Division II out to Nationals,” Plumer said.
The team came very close to qualifying for CCS last year.
“Last year [the team] missed making CCS by a couple of seconds. It was sad just to miss it. We were almost there,” junior Wesley Oribello said. “This year we are training harder.”
For Plumer, however, rankings are very subjective at this point in the running season. The girls varsity team was ranked this year within the first few weeks.
“Rankings are nice, but it’s about the progress of the team and how far the team has come over the last three years,” Plumer said.
