The afternoon sun glistened off the bright red track on Sept. 10 at Lynbrook High School, reflecting a red glow onto senior Elizabeth Kardach’s face as she sprinted down the final stretch, leaving the competition far behind. It was the Lynbrook Center Meet, the first meet of the season for the girls’ cross country team, and it included six other teams: Lynbrook, Milpitas, Wilcox, Cupertino and Santa Clara.
The rest of the Falcon team stood nearby on the bleachers — after successfully finishing their respective races — screaming and clapping as Kardach finished first.
The team came in second place on the 2.1-mile course behind Lynbrook. Top runners for the team were Kardach, who got first overall with a time of 13:01.0; junior Julia Hoffman at 14th place with a time of 14:07.1 and senior Siena Parsons in 17th place with a time of 14:24.1.
This is the first time that a female runner from Saratoga High has come in first overall in three years in a meet. Out of the 45 girls running from Saratoga, three of them achieved a personal record this meet, including Parsons and Kardach, who improved on her best time for the distance by a minute.
“Honestly a lot of the freshmen are doing really well, and the new sophomores, new juniors,” Hoffman said. “Our biggest issue the previous year was some of the seniors didn’t always come to all the practices. That’s still kind of an issue but less so now but the people that do show up are really strong so we’re going to have a great varsity team.”
For most meets, the race is split into waves based on competition level. Varsity A runs first, followed by Varsity B, with JV last. At Lynbrook, however, the race was split into grade levels, with the freshmen starting first and the seniors last.
Coach Danny Moon prefers the regular setup. With most meets, the girls who place in the top seven runners get to run varsity the next meet. He feels this setup allows a better challenge.
“I feel the athletes running as varsity and JV allow the athletes to run head to head,” Moon said.
However, Hoffman was happy with the meet’s style and the results. Since Hoffman has run the meet every year since she was a freshman, she has a good sense of what the meet is like and what her goals should be.
“It’s gotten a little better in my perspective just from having run it multiple times before,” Hoffman said. “I was just kind of proud of my placement [this year] because last year I didn’t do as well as my freshman year, [but this year] I got sixth, which I was happy about.”
Due to printing deadlines, the Falcon was unable to cover the Central Park meet on Sept. 25.