The Lady Vikes reached the cross country state championships Thanksgiving weekend for the first time in several years, placing 16th out of 23 teams that competed.
The state meet included more than 150 runners from teams that qualified, as well as about 30 runners who qualified individually.
Central Coast Section champion Aptos won the state meet with 150 points, beating their nearest competitor, Newport Harbor, by 11 points and Paly by 199 points.
The Lady Vikes closed the gap between themselves and rival Los Gatos, who was a close competitor at both the Central Coast Section and state championship meets. At the both meets, Los Gatos came in one place ahead of Paly. Although Los Gatos beat Paly by 37 points at CCS, at states Los Gatos only beat Paly by 12 points. At 100 minutes and 15 seconds, the girls’ team time at states was a mere two seconds slower than Los Gatos’ team time.
A surprise at the state meet came from junior Alicia Ivanhoe, who edged fellow junior Renata Cummins by seconds.
"Alicia’s had some really good PRs [personal records]," senior Katie Gosling said.
According to coach Paul Jones, Ivanhoe improved her PR by more than 30 seconds at the Crystal Springs course, which hosts CCS.
"[It wasn’t our] best race as a team, actually" Gosling said. One team member dropped out of the race less than halfway through it due to a fever.
Although four of the seven who ran varsity this year are seniors who won’t be returning next year, the team members don’t seem to be worried. The top dozen runners on the team train together, and the seventh through ninth place runners were equal throughout the season, one runner said.
Gosling and Cummins agree that training together is key. "We all train together," Gosling said.
"We’ve been running together [for] … at least a year," Cummins said.
A bright spot in Paly’s future is freshman Tamar Ben-Shachar, who is fast enough to run with the varsity team, according to her teammates.
Although the state finals are the last official race of the cross country season, four members of the girls team, Cummins, Ivanhoe, Lily Feng, and Gosling, competed in the Footlocker West Region race near Los Angeles. Cummins came in 54th in the seeded women’s race with a 5K time of 19:53, while Ivanhoe placed 70th with a 20:19 time.
Two of the runners who qualified individually for the boys race at state were Paly’s Scott Himmelberger, who placed 19th, and Francis Reynolds, who placed 28th.