By Rebecca Hext
Staff Writer
The boys and girls varsity cross country team competed in the Stanford Invitational at Stanford University on Saturday, Sept. 29. The girls team placed 10th out of 26 teams while the boys team was disqualified.
Leading the girls team was junior Abby Hong, who placed 16th overall with a time of 18:44. Following Hong in second place was senior Lauren Hagadorn finishing in 37th place with a time of 19:13. The other three scorers were sophomores Natasha Bruinstein in 67th (19:50) and Emma Lautanen in 76th (19:57) and junior Kellie Jeong in 86th (20:02).
“I thought we did very well as a team,” Bruinstein said. “It was a great bonding trip for the team and awesome that junior varsity got to race as well.”
During the boys varsity race, senior Dillon Shambaugh helped a fellow runner from another team finish the race after he took a hard fall just before the finish. Shambaugh was then disqualified from the race for touching another athlete which is against cross country rules. Consequently, the entire boys varsity was disqualified since they did not have five scoring athletes without Shambaugh.
“I just felt like sometimes there are more important things than getting the best time,” Shambaugh said. “Even though we compete against each other cross country is a sport where all the runners are a team against whatever course we are running; we all have each others backs.”
Both boys and girls will compete in the second Bay League race of the season at Palos Verdes High School on Thursday, Oct. 11.
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