The cross country team had its first meet of the year at Lynbrook on Sept. 12, and according to senior Lillian Zeng, “it was a pretty hard day for everyone.”
Sophomore Kole Tippetts said that since there has been no official team roster yet, the invitational meet was more of a “placing meet,” where the coaches would decide if players would run varsity or JV.
During the 2-mile meet, which had six participating teams, the boys freshmen placed fourth overall, the sophomores placed first, and both the juniors and seniors placed third.
Individually, Tippetts finished fourth among the sophomores with a time of 11:50, David Berkowitz Sklar finished fifth among the juniors with a time of 11:46 and Amit Nag finished second among the seniors with a time of 10:38.
For the girls’ team, the sophomores placed second, the juniors placed second and the seniors placed second.
Julia Hoffman finished sixth among the sophomores with a time of 14:15, and Elizabeth Kardach finished sixth among the juniors with a time of 14:32.
Many members of the cross country team said that their individual performances were not up to par.
As girls’ cross country co-captain, junior Siena Parsons recognizes the regression in performance the runners experienced during the meet.
“I’m in charge of coordinating the workouts we do, and it’s important for me to act as a good role model in order to encourage the team to work harder,” Parsons said. “I just want to be a team captain that can bond the team together and direct runners as to where they need to be [in their fitness regimen].”
The team plans to work to overcome this issue. With the addition new coach Ian Tippetts, who is Kole Tippetts’s father, the team is seeing harder practices than ever before.
Unlike the old runs, which were on average 2 to 3 miles, the new practices include 5 or 6 miles every day, resulting in one and a half hour practices, according to sophomore Justin Wu.
Distance isn’t the only thing that is making the new practices difficult. According to senior Leilee Naderi, practices now occasionally take place on Sarahills Drive, where the incline is steep.
“It challenges our muscles so that at the end of every cross-country meet, we can pick up our momentum and cross the finish line strong,” Naderi said.
After his experience in the first meet, Tippetts said he is determined to break out of his comfort zone in the future.
“I’m not as fast as I used to be in freshman year,” Tippetts said. “But we’re going to start working on steeper hills this week and next, and try harder at the next meet so we can earn that number one ranking.”