Paly’s varsity boys’ cross country team is now gearing up to run in the State Championships for the first time since 1990, after powerful performances from all seven boys at Saturday’s Central Coast Section championship meet in Salinas.
Junior Philip MacQuitty led the Viking pack, coming in at 15 minutes, 48 seconds, to place third overall out of 134 runners. Next from Paly was senior Charlie Avis, finishing the 3-mile Toro Park course in seventh place overall at 16:30, a personal record by 23 seconds. Senior Skyler Cummins, who also ran a personal record, finished in 16:56 for 17th place overall. Juniors Henry Jordan and Peter Wilson took 27th and 29th overall at 17:14 and 17:19 respectively, followed by juniors Alex Voet and Andrew Stober at 18:26 and 19:04, respectively.
The boys’ second place CCS triumph this year comes as a weighty achievement after last season’s team narrowly missed qualifying for states due to unanticipated illnesses. But according to junior Peter Wilson, the runners went into this season’s CCS finals feeling prepared and determined to continue to states.
“Anything could happen in any meet,” junior Peter Wilson said, “but the team entered [the race] confident and fired up. Some members of the team have tried for years to make it to states…and we realized that we have the fastest team Paly has ever had.”
Despite high temperatures and general course conditions that made for a tough race, Paly earned a second place team finish in a field of 18 high schools. Mountain View High School took first place and Paly rival Gunn High School took third, followed by Los Gatos, Woodside, and St. Francis.
“The race was very fatiguing because of the heat,” Wilson said. “It was somewhere above 80 degrees for our race. Across the board, times were slow in all races because of the heat, but the places reflect that our race was a huge success.”
Other members of the team also noted that the heat made it a challenge to perform at a level that satisfied their personal expectations, but that the meet as a whole was a success.
“It was really hot,” junior Andrew Stober said, “and personally I don’t think I had the best race, but of course I’m really happy about making states. This is the first team to make it to states in eighteen years, which seems pretty incredible.”
All that remains for the Vikings this season is to focus on preparing for the State Championships, which they will run on Nov. 29 at Woodward Park in Fresno.