Junior Steven Sum finished second out of 87 runners in the CCS division 3 meet held last Saturday at Crystal Springs, ending up with a time of 15:35. Sum will represent the school at the state meet later this month.
He will be the only runner going to state as the boys’ and girls’ teams failed to qualify.
The next best finisher on the boys’ team was junior Andrew Harter, who finished 15th with a time of 16:41. For the girls, the top finishers were sophomore Kimberly Chen and junior Christine Schlossareck, who placed 25th and 26th with a 20:40.
Sum was extremely disappointed after finishing second at the meet.
“I just had a really bad race,” he said. “Everyone else was decent.”
He said a series of misfortunes led the boys to not qualify for the state meet. The team’s second-best runner, senior Drew Bryan, had to drop out because of dizziness.
Before CCS, both the girls and the boys had been steadily improving. On Oct. 31, the teams competed at the Lynbrook Invitational meet, where several runners attained personal records.
On the boys’ team, Bryan ran the fastest time, completing the 2.1 mile course in 11:18.6. Harter was close behind, running an 11:18.9.
Almost half of the boys achieved new personal records, including juniors Aditya Aggarwal and Caleb Ho.
“The team’s performance was great,” Aggarwal said. “This has been one of our best years.”
Almost all of the girls set new personal records at the Lynbrook meet, with junior Christine Schlossareck leading the team with a time of 14:12. Juniors Valerie Lensch and Carolyn Qi were close behind, running times of 14:15 and 14:19, respectively.
Qi said that she is proud of the team’s ability to make up for the loss of some of their best athletes, including class of 2013 alumnae Maya Nag and Caroline Chou.
“It’s been hard, but we have been trying our best, pushing ourselves to run a little bit farther and a little bit faster every day,” Qi said.
On Nov. 5, the team competed in the De Anza League (DAL) finals at Crystal Springs.
On the boys’ team, Sum came in first out of the 116 runners with a time of 15:17 for the 2.95 mile course. The next fastest, Bryan, finished the course with a time of 16:23.
Combining the times, the boys’ team was fourth out of the seven schools competing.
On the girls’ team, Qi finished with a time of 20:52. Sophomore Ashley Chen, Schlossareck and freshman Alice Bian completed the course with similar times: 21:56, 21:57 and 22:18 respectively.
However, aside from the team’s running successes, Qi said that the team’s priority the entire season has been to support one another as teammates.
“At the end of the day, it is not really all about the scores, it is who we have become,” Qi said. “Can we look past the competition and work with each other as a team? Can we work together cohesively to positively promote hard work? And this year, I am very proud that our team can answer ‘yes’ to every one of these questions.”