After finishing strong last season, the boys’ and girls’ cross country teams are working hard and looking ahead at another successful season. The runners could not wait for their first Academy League meet on Tuesday Sept. 20 at 3 p.m. at Mason Park in Irvine. Both the boys’ and girls’ teams placed with the boys coming in 4th and the girls’ coming in 1st.

“Both our boys’ and girls’ teams hope to be competitive in the Academy League and in CIF-SS Division V,” head coach Nate Miller said. “We also hope to see each and every team member improve their fitness and racing times over the course of the season. And of course we hope to have fun along the way!”

The team has been working tirelessly to achieve these goals, running on average three to five miles each practice. Several of the team members even run up to 12 miles on certain days.

“We have one day a week where we run one hour plus, two days a week that are 30-minute easy runs and two days a week where we do a harder workout to develop aerobic fitness and speed,” Miller said.

Both the boys’ and girls’ teams are hoping to go far in CIF this year, especially since the girls’ team had a particularly exciting finish last season.

“Our girls are returning a very strong team that was 3rd in CIF-SS and 9th in the state last year. We have a great group that is close in ability that has been working really hard and we hope to have similar success this year. We also have our eyes on an Academy League Championship this year,” Miller said.

Senior captain Julia Lowe echoed that thought.

“Our team is looking really great this season with a solid varsity team who will hopefully dominate league this year!” Lowe said. “I think we are going to have a lot of people beating their personal records this season and I’m super excited to see how far we get. Our ultimate goal is to make it back to the state meet this year.”

However, it’s not just the girls who hope to win big this year, as the boys’ team has a lot of potential, especially among its younger runners.

“On the boys’ side, four of our top five runners are sophomores, giving us a young team that hopes to gain a lot of experience and improvement this year,” Miller said. “ I really look forward to watching them develop individually and as a team this year. We hope to continue our 10-year streak of making the CIF-SS finals (top 16 teams in CIF-SS Division V).”