After placing 12th in state last year, the girls’ cross country team returns with ambitions of more success this season. Where running sprints and long distances are normally a very debilitating portion of an athlete’s training, the team is a strong family of runners who run for sport. 

“Last season we had a very good year,” head varsity girls cross country coach Eric Simon said. “We were 12th in state last year, and the year before that, we were seventh, so we have had a nice little run.”

Simon plans on working with the athletes as a community to bring LT there once again. 

“I definitely want to try and get our team to state ’cause it was really fun last year, and I know we have a lot of new people on our team,” varsity runner Mya Coglianese said. “I hope that we can get there and get to sectionals and regionals.”

With many of the top seven runners having left for college, the team is rebuilding itself to its previous strength from state last season. 

“I’d probably say the best part is making friends,” Coglianese said. “We are all kinda experiencing the same thing, especially because cross country can be kind of a hard sport at times– especially at meets.”

After school, the team meets Monday through Friday in the SC field house for practice, and the meetings usually take place on Saturdays. Athletes do a variety of different workouts during these practices such as running hills and tempo runs. With this busy training schedule, the cross country team has developed a group mentality where each runner wants to see each other succeed and win for the team. During the cross country meets, they motivate each other to keep running and after a win, enthusiastically come together to celebrate. 

“I like to see a lot of progression and evolving throughout the season,” Simon said. “We have a lot of girls in new positions and it’s brand new to them so we want to see where we are at and try to get better from that all year.”

With the season underway, Simon and the other three assistant coaches will work to connect with the runners for success in sectionals and state. Coaches and runners share an important aspect in the team’s overall productivity, and the runners bond with the coaches in practice and at meets. But the runners’ connections with each other makes the girls cross country team thrive. 

“You definitely make a lot of friends, and you may not like it in the beginning, because I know I did summer running going into freshman year and I did not like running at all,” Coglianese said. “But then track made me realize there’s just a lot more people you can become friends with and it’s definitely easier to relate to a lot of things.”  

The team will be competing at the Palatine Interventional on Sept. 28 at Deer Grove East Forest Preserve in Palatine.