Montera Middle School’s Sydney Lee took home the gold for girls in the cross country meet on Nov. 2. The two mile long meet took place at Oyster Bay Regional Shoreline, and was a mostly flat course with very mild asphalt terrain.
Montera Middle School’s Sydney Lee won first place in the longest meet this year with a full 2 miles. With an exciting comeback finish, Lee passesd competitor Clive Loveless to take home the gold for Montera in the girls category and overall. When asked about the meet Lee said “I think I did good. Probably my best race this season” she said after an exceptional performance.
Lee feels confident in Montera’s performance in the meet saying “I think we had the best team for boys and girls” and she thinks Montera “consistently gets a couple people in the top five for boys and girls” with stats to back her up. Montera had 3 girls in the top five for the girls category with Sydney Lee in first place, Charley Gordon in fourth place, and Iris Friedman in fifth place.
The 2 mile meet proved challenging for some runners being the longest distance this season. Lee tells us that “It smelled pretty bad” due to a composting facility right next to where the meet was taking place. With a different starting line and finish line Lee said that “Some people got kind of confused about where the finish line was” And that
“Some people burned out because of the different distance”. Some people could have burned out because of a change of strategy due to the longer meet. The meet was also a flatter meet than normal which led to some people saving too much energy using a hill they had to save their energy for.
When asked about competition Lee says “I think they are good competition”. Clive Loveless joined cross country mid-season, getting first place at his first meet. Sydney says Clive is a “very good runner from [his] school”. Clive, as only a sixth grader, has gotten first among his school every time and is statistically the best runner at Claremont. Lee says the competition “helps us push to try our hardest in every meet which is important”.
With the big championship meet coming up in nine days there will be no meet this weekend to give runners a rest. Lee says “It will be nice to have a rest week” and she is happy to have her Saturday mornings back. Lee is curious to see how she does in her last meet of middle school.
Lee feels that Montera is “well prepared” and feels that “Montera is one of the few schools with hilly terrain” preparing Montera for the Skyline meet where runners will start at the Skyline track and run up a big hill to start everything off. The runners will complete a total of 2 laps running up a hill twice. If Montera has hilly terrain for practice then that gives them an edge on the championships.
The Championship will take place at Skyline High School on Nov. 16. Be sure to come out and support the Toro’s in the middle school championships!