On Saturday, Oct. 11, the Stevenson Girls’ Varsity Cross Country placed high as a team and as individuals in the Wheeling Invite, their last regular meet of the season with a three mile course. The Varsity team has been consistently placing high this season, recently placing second at the Bill Dortch – Harry Carson cross country invitational in Libertyville, a meet against seven other schools
The top five varsity runners were Sienna Romero, who achieved fourth overall in the varsity race with a time of 19 minutes 13 seconds, Amelia Godo ‘28 (20:09), Olivia Ruiz ‘26 ( 20:10), Camilia Pak ‘28(20:13), and Isabella Wan ‘26 (21:01). The other five varsity runners also completed the course successfully with only a three minute time difference between the first and tenth runner.
All five top runners commented on how the course was particularly tough, starting with a flat first mile, followed by two miles with two hills each. As a result, several runners came out of the first mile too fast. Head coach Lindsay DePaul and the team were hoping for top three at the meet, but she was happy with the results nonetheless.
“It’s a tough meet with hills in the second and third mile,” DePaul said. “But we were moving up place wise in terms of mile one compared to mile two and three, which is always our strategy.”
DePaul expressed her pride in the girls as they ran similar times to the meet before which was relatively less difficult. Many runners, like Camilia Pak ’28 commented on how much of a challenge the hills were at this meet. Even so, multiple girls, including Pak, achieved a personal record (PR) or a season record (SR), a promising sign for sectionals and conference.
“With so many PRs, like Camilia’s, on such a difficult course, I feel really hopeful that we will do well at sectionals and conference this year.” Varsity runner Anfisa Vasilyeva ‘28 said. “We might not make it to state but we will run well, we’ve been really cutting our times down .”
While achieving a personal record, Pak ran alongside Godo with just a three second difference between the two of them. Just like Pak and Godo, most of the girls ran in packs of two which allowed the team to achieve similar times.
“When we see our team in front of us, we know we can push each other,” Pak said. “Staying together, we’re stronger as a group than as one.”
Although many non-runners might consider cross-country an individual sport, both Pak and Vasilyeva believe the Patriots have fostered a strong community and team. Vasilyeva says, not only do they push each other forwards while running alongside one another but also on the sidelines, cheering each other on.
“I am really proud since everyone raced really well considering how hard the course was,” Vasilyeva said. “I’m really happy for them and I’m excited for the conference because I think we have a good chance at placing high”
Despite Vasilyeva being disappointed she did not achieve her goal of under 21 minutes, she remains focused on the achievements for the whole program. In the freshmen and sophomore race, the Patriots achieved second place and in the Junior Varsity (JV) race they earned third place.
On JV, Selina Lui ’27 and Alex Timones ’27 ran a PR, and Minnie Shao ‘26, Aditi Rawt ’26 and Ana Ortiz Manzanares ‘27 all ran SRs. In the freshman and sophomore race, Sarah Fear ’29 and Jaclyn Koay ’29 ran a PR, while Kaitlyn Jain ’28 ran a SR.
With a great final regular meet of the season, the Patriots Girls’ Cross Country team is already into the post season, with a third place win at conference and another race on Oct. 25 at Grant high school for regionals. In order to qualify for sectionals, the girls will have to place either top six as a team or be the top five runners of the meet to qualify as individuals. The Patriots are optimistic about the next leg of their season.
“We’ve worked hard this season, harder than anyone else,” Vasilyeva said. “Other schools might have more star runners, but we’ve proved that we can run better as a team.”