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The Student News Site of Palo Alto High School

The Paly Voice

The Student News Site of Palo Alto High School

The Paly Voice

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Girls' cross country team successful in first meet

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Junior Torie Nielsen finishes strong at a Gunn High School meet on Thursday, Sept. 9. – David LimThe Palo Alto High School girls’ cross country team is anticipating a strong season after an encouraging pre-season performance at Gunn High School last Thursday, highlighted by impressive runs from new varsity members.

“It was good. Very solid,” head coach Paul Jones said after the meet. “Competitively, we did really well against Saint Francis, but we can’t legally score this race.”

Senior Susan Heinselman finished first among Paly runners, completing the 2.1-mile course in 13 minutes and 25 seconds.

“I feel like the race went pretty well,” Heinselman said. “I had a better basis of training from over the summer. [During the summer] I ran a half-marathon, where I got 2nd in my age group, and I went on long runs every weekend. I just worked really hard.”

Most of the Vikings who participated in the meet were happy with the team’s overall performance, even if they were not as satisfied with their individual times.

“Personally, I didn’t do as well as I thought I would,” junior Lydia Guo said. “But as a team, a lot of the runners stepped up to bring a good performance. [Sophomore] Nora Rosati did really well, especially because this is her first varsity race.”

Rosati had a stellar race, finishing in 14:24.

“I think Paly girls had a great start to the season,” Rosati said. “Everyone looked good and ran hard.”

The girls’ team had eight runners in the varsity division, but the varsity roster for the season is still undecided.

“It will be the first week of November until we get a solid idea of varsity,” Jones said.

For several freshmen, this meet was their first experience with a competitive race.

“It [the race] seemed longer than it actually was,” freshman Daniela Ivey said. “I think I did well considering that I’m sick. I tried hard.”

Older members of the team are looking forward to the rest of the season.

“I think that the JV team ran well and we definitely have some freshmen that will help out the team,” sophomore Maryssa Sklaroff said.

The meet was a pre-season scrimmage between several local schools: Paly, Gunn, Castilleja and Saint Francis of Mountain View. As a result, scores and times were not officially recorded. However, Palo Alto team manager Chayla Cummings recorded the times ran.

Paly will kick off its official season at 11:25 a.m. on Sept. 18. at Golden Gate Park for the Lowell Invitational.

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