Girls' Cross Country Crushes First Race

Last week, Girls’ XC traveled to Choate Rosemary Hall for their first race of the season. Coming out of preseason, most of the team was very optimistic about their chances to defend their Interschols’ title by the end of the year.

The Choate Invitational gave good reason for this team to have high hopes. Uppers Grace Gray and Ashley Lin finished in the top two spots of the entire race--despite the challenges the course presented that day.

Upper Hanna Pak reaffirmed the ability of this year’s runners. “The team did a great job at Choate! It’s arguably the hardest course of the season, and everyone worked really hard in the race to power up the hills and have great finishes,” she said.

Senior captain Sara Kopunova expressed pride for the way in which the team competed.

“Individually we had some amazing times, especially considering this was the first race of the season,” she said. “Additionally, Choate is very hilly, and it was hot that day, so seeing how well we did as a team and as individuals was amazing.” Gray enjoyed every aspect of the race and also agreed that the team had a good race in all. “It was so fun to spend the day running, cheering, and overall bonding with the team. It was also great to start our season off on the same course that we’ll finish it on at Interschols in a few months,” she said.

Some members of the team also competed at the Codfish Bowl on Sept. 23 which was a tough race because of the college runners who ran that day.

Lin finished as the fastest PEA runner in 17th place overall while the team collectively finished in 6th place out of 14 teams.

Kopunova added that the runners struggled with the weather conditions. “Generally, the team started off pretty fast and then had problems on the last mile, both because of the heat and humidity and because we had a hard week of training, including three difficult workouts in a row,” she said.

“We’ve had some pretty strong individual races at both the Choate race and at the Codfish bowl, but I’m excited to keep working together as a team to make sure we all have our best races,” Gray said. “I think it’s going to be an awesome season if we continue to work together on and off the racecourse.”

Pak remains optimistic for the team’s season. “We have a chance to really do well this season by training hard and making sure none of us get injured. I’m really looking forward to more great races,” she said.

The team will race again on Sept. 30 at Coe-Brown Black Bear. “The first two meets were just experiments, but I think now we know better who is our speed and so we can stay and run with them during meets. We are looking forward to the other seven meets we have,” Kopunova said.