Pickard and Law set pace for cross country team in early meets

The cross country team recently participated in a Lynbrook meet on Sept. 8 and an Early Bird Invitational on Sept. 12, marking the first big races of their competitive season.

The senior and freshman girls won their division on the hilly, 2.1 mile Lynbrook course, with standout athletes freshman Sasha Pickard and senior Kimberly Chen completing the race with times of 13:09 and 14:24 respectively.

Other runners like senior Sanah Shah hope to improve their personal times in upcoming meets.

“I didn't pace myself well, so I was good during the first mile, but then I got a bloody nose on the second mile and got last place,” Shah said. “My goal for the season is to reduce my mile time and at least not get last place again because that was shameful.”

Although some key runners did not perform as well as they had hoped, the team isn’t deterred.

“Our team was one position away from states last year,” said Chen. “So we have really high hopes this year.”

As a team, the boys’ also did well at the Lynbrook meet, with runners senior Stephen Law and Matthew Peterson and sophomore Amit Nag leading the pack with times of 10:57, 11:10 and 11:53 respectively.

According to Law, though, many people have doubted the team’s capability due to key losses such as Class of 2015 alumni Andrew Harter, Rohith Krishna and Steven Sum. Regardless, Law hopes to prove them wrong and qualify for states both individually and as a team by working extra hard.

“[Peterson], junior Nick Sum and I have been doing a lot of mileage,” Law said. “I've been doing nine miles a day, six days a week at a 7-minute pace for the last two months.”

Although Law believes the varsity team is strong, he is concerned by the lack of training on the part of the younger team members.

“I really tried to get some of the other younger runners to run this summer to prepare,” Law said. “Very few actually did it, which is pretty disappointing.”