The 2013 Cross Country season kicked off last Wednesday at the first Sierra Foothill League meet at Willow Hills. All of the schools in the league competed including Roseville, Nevada Union, Granite Bay, and Woodcreek. This is the first meet that counts towards a league title and where one can see where each team stands for the upcoming season.

For the Varsity Boys, it was a breakthrough race. Not only did they take first overall, but beat Woodcreek for the first time in five years. Woodcreek and Rocklin have had somewhat of a rivalry in cross country ever since they were dubbed “co-champions” in the SFL back in 2008. Not only were the boys able to beat them, but they did it by a large margin. The final score was 35-74 Rocklin.

“It’s about time we beat Woodcreek. Now we only have to do it two more times,” Ty Medd, cross country captain said. The boys will be facing Woodcreek in the next two league meets, and though we have the lead as of now, league champion is influenced by each one.

Following this win, the boys also took first place out of 38 schools from all over the state at the Stanford Invitational last Saturday. Over 200 athletes were entered in this race and George Miao once again lead the team to victory, taking first place overall.

The difference between this season and the past five that may have helped spur Rocklin’s victory is their training regime. Coach Dan Pereira has increased the team’s mileage by about ten miles per week. The varsity mileage totals 60 per week and JV rounds out at around 50, as opposed to previous years where varsity would run around what JV is doing this year.

“We started off the season doing a crazy amount of mileage but we are slowly tapering and starting to do more speed stuff,” Mandy Ehrhardt, senior.

In order to get in all the miles their new schedule requires, the team meets twice a week for morning runs in addition to daily afternoon practice. Both JV and varsity runners arrive at the school at 5:55 a.m. and then take off on a 4 to 5 mile run before the sun comes out. For the JV runners especially, this has been a rough transition. Still the results seem to be paying off, keeping the whole team determined and anxious to keep it up.

The question now is whether or not Rocklin can keep up this winning streak. Next Saturday, the team is competing at the Del Oro 4000 and the following Wednesday is their second league meet. Leading into these next couple races there is a target on the boys’ backs, now they must hold their spot and prove that this season Rocklin is here to win.