The Palo Alto High School boys’ cross country team will be competing at the California Interscholastic Federation State Championships tomorrow in Fresno after a second place finish at Central Coast Section Championship this month.

According to Coach Kelsey Feeley, the team has been training hard to prepare for States.

“I think the team is ready to do better than they did last season,” Cross country runner Kai Oda said. “That’s not hard since we placed dead last at States last year.”

Oda predicts that the team will place in the top 10 at States this year.

“We have used the last two weeks since taking second at CCS finals to focus on form and pacing work,” Feeley said.

Key runners to look out for are freshman Henry Saul, sophomore Sam Craig and junior Naveen Pai. According to Oda, the team’s fastest runner, junior Kent Slaney, is injured so he may not run at States.

“The entire team is hoping that he recovers in time to race,” Oda said. “If Slaney does not run, then sophomore Aashai Avadhani will fill in as an alternate.”

Feeley is confident for tomorrow and is excited to see how all of the boys run.

“We were lucky to attend an invitational at the Woodward park course earlier in the year, so hopefully the boys will feel more comfortable and prepared this time around,” Feeley said.