The boys and girls cross country teams is looking to still succeed this season after losing nine seniors last year across both teams. According to senior captain Mathew Tan, the team is much smaller this year compared to last year.
“We graduated a lot of very strong seniors,” Tan said. “Last year’s senior class was probably the strongest year of runners we’ve had while I’ve been on the team, and according to [Head Coach Mark Mayall], probably the past decade, so it’s a lot to make up for, but we think we can do a good job.”
According to Tan, one of the team’s goals this year is to collectively qualify for the MAA Cross Country State Championships in November. In order achieve that goal, the team has been training during the summer and training consistently to prevent injuries.
“As our coach likes to say, cross country is really a sport that starts in the summer,” Tan said. “ You can’t start training in September and expect to do well at the end of the season in November.”
Some members of the boys and girls teams are also looking forward to some specific races this upcoming season, such as the Bob Glennon Twilight Invitational meet.
“I am most excited about the Twilight Meet, which takes place in Cape-Cod at night,” junior captain Cordia Wang said.
The team’s racing schedule can be found on Arbiter. The boy’s team captains this year are seniors Tan, Edge Wheeler and Noah Goldstein. The girl’s team captains are juniors Wang and Ainsley Jay.
“The primary job as captains is to set a good example for the rest of the team during warm ups,” Tan said. “We want to make sure that we set a good example in what we say and what we do, both during practice and also just at school in general.”
