Throughout the years, YLHS women’s cross country program has had many improvements and has been continuing to exceed drastically. This season the coaches and athletes have been striving to be better than last year and gain more achievements. Of course, the season has just began with only five meets under their belt.

In the first meet, which was the annual Cerritos Great Cow Run, women’s varsity came in twelfth place out of almost thirty schools. With almost thirty schools, there was more than 230 girls that raced at this meet. Of the 230 girls, three athletes had remarkable rankings and times, which were Sarah Heckel (18:37), Payton Janish (19:36), and Alyssa Armendreriz (19:41). Yet, this was just the first meet, so there is still growth and improvement to come.

Their second meet was the Rosemead Invitational at Rosemead high school, which consisted of numerous amounts of schools from all over California. The only difference with this meet was that the races were split up according to the runners grade rather than their level, such as varsity, junior varsity, and frosh/soph. For freshman girls, Katie Valdez, Bella Wachter, and Alyssa Larsen came in the top three in a close tie amongst each other. Sophomore girls, on the other hand, also had close timings within the same range. However, the junior girls did not have that many athletes racing, so they did not have as good as an outcome. Senior girls happen to have more athletes racing, which were Vanessa Pham, Payton wink, and Corina Fantes, who earned top three out of all the YLHS women racers. This was done thanks to the extensive training put in by the athletes and the coaches all throughout summer and school.

The most recent meet was the Clovis Invitational, which took place at Woodward Park, Fresno. At this meet, it was divided into four different divisions of varsity. YLHS was placed in division three and earned 8th place out of 27 high schools. The lady mustangs that were the first three to finish were Ashley Lee, Sarah Heckel, and Payton Janish, with outstanding times.

This cross country season is slowly, but surely coming to an end with only a few meets left. There is still, however, time for “personal records as well as increasing the ranks for the league,” states Ashley Taylor (11). The cross country season seems to be going extremely well, and there is “much excitement for the upcoming championship race because we get to see the results of all of our hard work,” Ashley Taylor voices.