By Ching Yuen, staff writer
With the highest finishes in school history, the varsity boys placed 2nd and the girls placed 3rd at the CIF San Francisco Section Cross Country Championship on Wednesday Nov. 16, 2022, at the Polo Field in Golden Gate Park. The San Francisco Section is among the ten sections across California where the top eight runners per gender from each section automatically qualify for the State Championship. Although the Lions did not win, varsity girls runners junior Noelle K., sophomore Sofie G., and varsity boys runners senior Mathias C., junior Jackson V., and sophomore Nicolas R. all finished in the top eight respectively and qualified for the State Championship.
The Varsity Boys
In the early stages of the varsity boys’ race, Galileo and Lowell were neck-to-neck, forming a pack at the front. It wasn’t until the later part of the race that Lowell started pulling away and ultimately finished ahead of the Lions. Senior Mathias C. finished third (17:33), sophomore Nicolas R. in seventh (17:40), juniors Jackson V. and Marcel G. in eighth (17:43) and 11th (18:01), sophomores Shepard P. and Georges B. at 13th (18:24) and 17th (19:03), junior Wayland T. at 34th (20:59).
Senior Mathias C. comments, “There is one lesson that I learned and it’s that there is a lot of work to be done both physically and mentally. My goal is to get the fastest time in the section in the state meet. I am happy to be leaving the cross country team knowing how much the team has improved and how much they can still improve. I am the only senior that is leaving and our team is young.”
Junior Jackson V. shares his thoughts: “We couldn’t do what we wanted, which was to bring the first championship back home to Gal. This is the fastest team our school has ever had regardless of championship status, and you can’t ask for much more than that. All that this loss will do is push us for the next title next year. I can’t say I’m happy but I also can’t say I’m devastated. Everyone should be proud of themselves.”
Sophomore Leo G. says, “I had a really good race but it still didn’t feel satisfying after the loss of our vars team. It felt like if we had been a little luckier we would’ve been able to win. Hopefully, the team will be able to use this as motivation for next year.”
The Varsity Girls
Meanwhile, in the varsity girls’ race, it was yet another showdown between the second-fastest runner in the league, junior Noelle K., and the fastest runner in the league, Jacqueline H. from Lowell. The two runners separated from the rest of the field from the start to finish, but in the end, Noelle K. secured second place behind Jacqueline H. Meanwhile, fellow Galileo teammate Sofie G. was able to fend off a Washington runner at the finish line, finishing in eighth place (22:02) to qualify for State Championship. The rest of the team also had strong performances, including: junior Niki L. finished 14th place (23:58); sophomore Selah T. finished 17th place (25:13); freshman Makenzie R. and Mya E. finished 21st place (26:49) and 22nd place (27:40); junior Nancy G. finished at 24th place (29:05).
Junior Noelle K. says, “It was a reminder that I always have to know my motivation for running because in this race I didn’t have a strong motive and negatively impacted my running. I think this year was a very good year for the growth of the team. I think there is more of a team environment just by working together. I think everyone massively improved in a lot of ways and it’s really cool to watch. I feel sad it’s over.“
Sophomore Sofie G. adds, “It was kind of a surprise for me to get into state. I didn’t really think I could do it so I didn’t really prepare for going to state. I will be doing workouts for the rest of the week but I didn’t really have any preparation. We did more 400m, 800m this year which helped a lot. This year is my second year so I have a foundation to build from.”
After a full season with the team, Coach Braund feels proud of how far the team has come, saying, “It wasn’t the result that we were hoping for but we still ran an amazing race and it worked out at the end. Everyone ran as hard as they could. We lost to a great team. The field is really deep this year. There aren’t a lot of elite runners but this year’s qualifying time is a lot faster than last year’s. On the girl’s side, we had 2 qualifiers. Sofie was way more of a surprise that she ranked 8th. [Moving forward,] we are looking to the state meet. I am hoping Mathias can redeem himself. He fell in the last mile but he has one more opportunity to redeem himself at the state meet and I am confident he is going to. Overall, it was a great day. It was the best day ever in the history of Galileo cross country.”
The Lions who qualified for the 2022 CIF State Cross Country Championships will compete on November 26, 2022, at Woodward Park, Fresno.
Race results posted on Athletic.net: Link
