Sammy Miller
Staff Writer
The Mira Costa cross country team sprinted their way to a third and fourth place finish in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Preliminaries.
The Mustangs competed in the CIF Preliminaries at the Riverside Course on Friday, Nov. 10, against schools from all over California, the boys team placed third overall in the 3 mile race and the girls team finished fourth overall.
“Going into this meet it brought about a lot of excitement for us,” junior Olivia Hacohen said. “I think that I speak for the entire girls varsity team when I say that we were ready to go out there, run our hardest, and see all of our hard work pay off.”
Both teams prepared for the meet with extensive workouts and previous meets. The Riverside Course was very flat, forcing the Mustangs take a different approach to the meet.
“This course was very flat in comparison to other meets, with the exception of a few potholes,” sophomore Cara Chittenden said. “Our team stayed positive beforehand and were more conservative in the 1st mile of the race.”
Girls varsity ran before the boys team in the meet with Hacohen finishing with a time of 18:10, leading the Mustangs with a tenth place finish out of 144 runners. Junior Brooke Inouye followed Hacohen with a time of 18:13, placing thirteenth and right behind Inouye was junior Lucy Atkinson placing fifteenth with a time of 18:14.
“My weakness for this race was not getting out into the front pack fast enough, but my biggest strength was coming mentally prepared and finishing the race strong,” Inouye said.
Following the girls varsity race, the boys varsity team ran with senior Xavier Court finishing first out of 182 runners with a time of 14:52. Following Court was junior Cy Chittenden running a 15:16, 11th place and senior Quinn Satow ran a 15:42, finishing in 38th place.
“I was able to pace myself for the first mile, carrying my team with me, and then was able to finish strong for the last mile to outrace my opponents,” Court said.
Costa’s strategy of running as a pack definitely came into play this meet and worked out in their favor. The Mustangs finished with three top 15 performances by sticking together and finishing the race as a team.
“The team has incredibly close camaraderie, and we all love each other so much,” sophomore Carmen Mel said. “This motivates us to stick with our teammates throughout the race, even when it gets tough.”
The Mustang’s performance will allow them to compete in the CIF Finals on Saturday, Nov. 18 at the Riverside Course. The team is excited to hopefully have its hard work pay off in the Finals according to sophomore Pnina Tofler.
“We have worked so hard since June to get ourselves ready and I know that our team does very well on flat courses which is the CIF course,” Tofler said.
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