Thanks to a robust team effort and vast personal improvements from a significant number of Paly runners, the varsity cross country boys earned a second place finish at the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League championship meet on Tuesday.
Held at the Crystal Springs course in Belmont, the SCVAL meet secured a spot for the varsity boys in the upcoming Central Coast Section championships. As a team, the boys placed second out of seven teams, losing only to Mountain View High School and defeating cross-town rival Gunn High School, who took third.
In the varsity race, junior Philip MacQuitty came in first from Paly and third overall out of 47 runners, completing the 2.95-mile course in 15 minutes, 25 seconds. Senior Skyler Cummins finished next from the team in 15:43, placing seventh overall, followed by senior Charlie Avis in eighth place overall with a time of 15:55. In sixteenth place overall, junior Peter Wilson was the fourth Paly runner at 16:39. Junior Henry Jordan finished in 16:54 for 20th place overall, junior Andrew Stober came in at 17:05 for 24th, and senior Colin Schmitt took 28th at 17:41.
Junior Alex Voet, the first Paly JV runner, finished in 17:01 and took second out of 162 JV boys. Junior Conor Ney came in sixth overall at 17:52, just ahead of junior Varun Kohli at 17:54. Senior John Hicks finished in 18:11 for tenth place overall, along with junior Ben Sklaroff in 11th place at 18:12. Seniors Oliver Davies and Daniel Yeh came in 14th and 16th overall, respectively, at 18:24 and 18:32.
Paly’s JV boys, like varsity, finished second as a team. The frosh-soph boys finished third as a team, just behind Gunn in second place and Mountain View in first.
Notable Paly performances in the frosh-soph race included freshmen Freddy Avis and Corso Rosati’s 14th and 15th overall finishes at 18:21 and 18:23, respectively. Freshman Andre Gouyet ran the course in 18:40 to take 19th place overall, and sophomore Charles Lockner was 21st overall at 18:45.
According to head coach Joe Ginanni, the team’s strong performance on Tuesday will help to lead the team into an even more competitive mindset for the CCS meet. The SCVAL championship marks the end of the regular season, and only varsity will move on to CCS.
“This was a very good race overall,” Ginanni said. “A lot of the guys ran well and ran their fastest times, but feel they can do better at CCS in a few weeks.”
The varsity squad, with another solid race under its belt, now looks ahead to the crucial CCS competition on Nov. 15, where the Vikings will contend for the opportunity to advance to states.
“I’m really satisfied with how we did today,” Cummins said. “I’m definitely expecting to run better at CCS.”