After earning a respectable 10th place out of 43 at the 34th annual Stanford Cross Country Invitational Saturday, Paly’s varsity boys’ cross country team now faces more than a week’s worth of time before their next meet to recover and improve.

Saturday’s prestigious Stanford Invitational course featured a five-kilometer-long trail looping around the Stanford Golf Course. Racing against 43 other teams, including some from outside of California, senior co-captain Brian Hsueh explains how surprised he was at the amount of athletes at the Invite.

“I didn’t expect the meet to be so big,” Hseuh said. “There were a lot of people, and it was a huge race.”

Considering the various regions of competition represented at the meet, one of the boys’ team’s main goals Saturday was to concentrate on staying with or defeating their foremost Central Coast Section (CCS) competitors, but they evidently were unsuccessful in obtaining this goal.

“We were focused on beating the CCS teams, but we didn’t do that,” Hsueh said.

Junior Skyler Cummins agrees.

“We got 10th overall, which is decent, but a little bit off some of the teams we wanted to beat,” Cummins said. “Some of us could have had better races.”

Though the Paly boys bested 33 other teams in the Division II race at the Stanford Invite, they fell behind fellow CCS teams of Los Gatos, Mountain View, and St. Francis who claimed third, fourth, and fifth place respectively in the same race.

First to finish from Paly’s team was sophomore Philip MacQuitty at 15 minutes, 41 seconds. MacQuitty completed the race second to junior Bryan Tibaduiza from Galena High School, but is still pleased with how he personally ran.

“He [Tibaduiza] is a good runner and son of Olympian [Domingo Tibaduiza],” MacQuitty said. “I don’t think I could have beaten him. I tried my hardest, but…it is early in the season when it doesn’t really count.”

MacQuitty is also pleased with where he stands this season compared to last season.

“I am very content,” MacQuitty said. “I’m starting out a lot faster than I did last year.”

Junior Charlie Avis was, yet again, second from Paly’s team to finish the course, crossing the finish line at 16:42. Following him were four Paly seniors: Brian Karvelas at 17:22, Hsueh at 17:28, Gilbert Choi at 17:38, and Jeremy Jacob at 17:54. Cummins came in seventh for Paly at 18:10.

Hsueh views Saturday’s results as an indication for opportunity in team progress.

“Overall, it was not as good a race as we had hoped for, but it means there’s still room for improvement” Hsueh said.

MacQuitty also believes that the team still has time to develop, and is confident that the best is yet to come.

“The times will go down like they always do,” MacQuitty said. “Cross country is about being patient with the times. You put in the work, and it will [pay off].”

The cross country boys will look to continue improving and sharpening their athletic abilities before their next meet on Oct. 9 at the Crystal Springs course in Belmont.