Following its success in the regular season, the cross country team entered the postseason poised for CIF preliminaries and finals season.
The team hopes to repeat last season’s strong performance and qualify for the state meet for the second year in a row.

“For prelims, our goal is a steady race that qualifies us to move onto finals the next weekend,” Captain Lila Cardillo ’18 said, “From there, our focus will be on qualifying for the state meet.”
The team’s performance at the finals qualified them for the CIF Southern Section prelims on Nov. 11 in Fresno.

If the runners perform well at the prelims, they can then qualify them for the CIF finals.
The team aims to continue its streak and make it to the all-state meet. Due to a CIF rule change, more teams have been allowed to qualify for the CIF meet out of the prelims.

On Nov. 1, the team competed in the Mission League Finals at Crescenta Valley Park.
Both the varsity girls and boys finished in second place overall in the league.

Natalia Quintero ’21 became the league champion, winning first place with a time of 18:27 and Cardillo came in fifth place with a time of 19:56. Jonah Ring ’18 placed eighth in 16:21 followed by Andrew Shibuya ’19 in ninth place in 16:29.

The team has had troubles with injuries on both the girls’ and boys’ teams throughout the season. Jonah Ring and Captain Adin Ring ’18 were both out with injuries at the Griffith Park meet on Sept. 26, in which the boys’ squad achieved second place behind Loyola.

“Our team isn’t as deep this year as it was last year, but we have lots of great talent,” Adin Ring said.

The girls team gained a number of new freshman varsity runners this year.

These emerging runners included Quintero, who took first place at the Griffith Park league meet.

Additionally, Shibuya has contributed to the boys’ team’s success.

Shibuya took seventh place at both the Seaside and the Sunny Hills/Wayne Walker Invitationals, on Sept. 8 and Sept. 23 respectively.