The Paly girls’ cross country team is looking forward to seeing further improvement after its first meet of the season, the Gunn Alumni Meet, last Thursday afternoon.
“We did really great today,” girls’ head coach Paul Jones said. “The varsity was running above expectations, Elizabeth Scott had a really good race, and we had a couple of surprises in junior varsity, including Gracie Cain, who did amazing in her first cross country race.”
Senior co-captain Elizabeth Scott both started out and finished strong, securing a third place finish overall for the varsity girls. Scott finished with a time of 13 minutes, 24 seconds on the 2.2 mile course, behind only Gunn runners Allie Mayer, with a time of 13:05, and Lisa Fawcett. Scott was pleased with her run and hopes to improve throughout the rest of the season.
“It was really surprising,” Scott said. “I met my goal of breaking 13:30. It was also really exciting to be running right behind Allie [Mayer], and I feel like I can really improve.”
A surprise standout on the junior varsity team was sophomore Cain, who took first place with a time of 14:48. Thursday was Cain’s first cross country race. She was followed by sophomore Susan Heinselman, who finished seventh with a time of 15:11.
Junior Kathleen Higgins finished in seventh place behind Scott in the varsity race with a time of 13:48, which is a personal record of about 23 seconds, according to Higgins. Senior co-captain Gillian Lui finished 14th with 14:33, closely followed by junior Regina Wang, who finished with a time of 14:38. Senior co-captain Sarah Haydock came in 19th and grabbed the final scoring position for Paly with a time of 15:07.
The Paly girls’ team faced off against teams from Gunn, St. Francis, The King’s Academy, and Castilleja in 102 degree weather.
“I was sweating into my eyes and up my nose,” junior Abby LaPier said.
Jones predicts that both Gunn and St. Francis will be schools will be ranked in the top five of the league. Jones hopes that Paly will join them in the top five.
After an encouraging start to the season, the team hopes to continue to run strong races and aims to qualify for the state meet.
“We’ve got a great team, a great group out there running, so it will be exciting to see what we can accomplish,” Haydock said.
Next up for the Paly girls’ cross country team is the Lowell Invitational on Sept. 20 at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.