Over the weekend the Corona del Mar cross country team sent their best to the Stanford Cross Country Invitational. The team earned sixth place overall and first in the Southern Section.
Team Captain Sebastien Welch said that the team’s goal was to get top five at the meet. Unfortunately, the team was a mere seven points shy from achieving their goal. Although the team did not meet their goal, Welch remains optimistic, “It was our first time running together as a team, we are still working out the kinks with our different racing styles… the team shows lots of potential and will hopefully continue to develop that potential so we can make it to State this year.”
At Stanford the temperature was well over 100 degrees during their races. Being accustomed to Newport Beach weather, the heat made it extremely difficult for the team to run. Senior Krisitna Funahashi said, “It was really, really hot and it was really hard to run, but I think we all tried hard, ran through it, and ended up doing really well overall.”
The heat was not the only difficulty the team faced. The course at Stanford was slightly longer than the average high school cross country race. Welch said, “The course was a 5k, 3.1 miles, compared to the usual 3 mile high school course, this adds about 35 seconds to your 3 mile time.”
Overall Welch seemed satisfied with their performance, saying that, “Half of our team didn’t run that well due to many factors, so to still get 6th was an accomplishment.”

The order for the team’s scoring:
Sebastien Welch 16:45 22nd
Austin Barvin 16:54 28th
Alex Turnee 17:31 67th
Blake Myers 17:31 68th
Peter Morris 17:37 76th
Derek Satterfield 17:59 102nd
Kjell Wolker 18:33 142nd