CVHS cross country crushes competition

The CVHS girls varsity cross country team took first place with 51 points at the 75th Annual Mt. SAC Invitational, a 2.93 mile course. 

Freshman Illana Nierengarten finished in first place with a time of 19:38.

“I got out kind of conservative to save energy, and then as the hills progressed, I tried to pick up my speed of effort,” explained Nierengarten. “Towards the end of the race I just went all out and passed a few people in the end.”

Senior captain Alyssa Chen placed fifth with a time of 20:24.

“The race was honestly pretty difficult, but I think we did really good, especially as a team,” reflected Chen. “It really pushed us and showed just how much we trusted our training.”

Junior Hannah Murry placed 13th with a time of 21:26.

“I felt like I did pretty well. I had worked hard, so I was proud about how I went there and was able to compete,” said Murry. “I was proud that we were able to do so well, I was actually really surprised to do so well.”

Overall, the girls varsity team finished the invitational very strong, with Maya Dughi in 21:30, Mika Gomes in 21:48, Anna Dughi in 22:22, and Abigail Choy in 22:34.

“[The students] really showed and demonstrated their effort and they actually had fun with it, they really did,” said coach Rachel Lunt. “You could just tell they embraced it, and their results really showed their hard work and effort.”

The cross country team put in a lot of practice to prepare for Mt. SAC.

“We do a few days on the track where it’s flat when we’re focusing on getting distance and speed in, and then we also go to Lake Chabot for long runs for hills,” explained Murry. “We also go down to the golf course.”

The students are pleased with their results both individually and as a group.

“I’m really happy with how we performed as a team and how I did as an individual. It was definitely a higher result than I expected,” said Nierengarten. “I was just going for top five or to be in the top pack, so to come out in first was kind of a surprise, and a good surprise. Then as a team, we definitely did as best as we possibly could that day and it wound up with excellent results.”