At Yorba Linda High School, there are a variety of phenomenal students who are also extremely successful in their extracurricular activities. Sydney Rome (11) is a perfect example of that type of student. She is a great student, a captain of the girls varsity cross country team, and the number one runner on the team. During this current cross country season, Sydney has won two of the four races that she competed in and came in the top three of the other two races.

To get to this dominance in cross country, Sydney worked extremely hard in the months and years leading up to this season. She started running her freshman year, and during that season she had a personal record (PR) of 20:37 for three miles. She improved upon that time during her sophomore year when she had a PR of 19:49 for three miles. In June 2021, she ran a marathon, which is 26.2 miles, along the Santa Ana River, starting from her house and ending at Huntington Beach. She says that her “family inspired her” to run this marathon because “they were so motivating and helped [her] so much.” Shortly after this accomplishment, she took part in a difficult eight-week summer camp to prepare for cross country season, which consisted of runs and other workouts at 7:30 in the morning six-days a week for eight weeks of summer.

Almost immediately after summer ended, on September 4th, Sydney raced in the Fastback Invitational on the notoriously hilly Mt. Sac Course. Although she got lost in a confusing part of the course, she still placed second out of junior girls with a time of 12:11 on a 1.93 mile course. Then, on September 17th, she raced in the Woodbridge Invitational, a three-mile course in Norco, and she placed 3rd of varsity girls with a time of 17:35. After these races, she continued to work exceedingly hard during practice, and it definitely paid off in her next two races. On October 2nd, she competed in Temecula Twilight’s Sundown Showdown race, which was the faster varsity race, and she won the race with a time of 17:22 for a three-mile course. A week later, she and the rest of the varsity team traveled up to Fresno and competed in the Clovis Invitational, and again, she won the race with a 5K, 3.1 mile, time of 18:26 on a relatively hilly course, which helped the Yorba Linda Girls Varsity Team come in 7th place out of the 24 schools there. 

Since running is such a challenging and strenuous sport, runners definitely need a support system.  Sydney thanks her coaches, teammates, and family for motivating her, helping her achieve her goals, and being the “biggest parts of [her] support system.” Also, she enjoys this sport “because it is very rewarding and the positivity of the running community,” and her favorite part about running is “being with her teammates.”

In addition to running, Sydney takes multiple difficult classes consisting of AP Lang, Physics, Algebra II/Trigonometry, US History, and Graphic Design. Because Cross Country is such a time consuming and difficult sport, she says that “it can be hard” to balance academics with running, but since she knows “how important they both are to [her], she “works extra hard to make time for both.” Because Sydney is so hard working, she is a huge inspiration to her teammates. Brandon Nowland (12), one of her teammates and a member of the boys varsity team, thinks Sydney has a great work ethic, supports her teammates all the time, and is “really fast.”

Overall, Sydney is an extremely determined, hardworking, and athletic person. For her Cross Country season, she has two more races, the Mt. Sac Invitational and League Finals, until CIF and State, and she will also be on the varsity Track and Field team in the spring. As Mustangs, we are very proud of her accomplishments and are excited to see what she accomplished in the future!