Arroyo’s cross country team is excited for its first meet of the season, Saturday September 1st at Arcadia County Park. They will compete against other schools by grade for a chance to earn medals and get fast times.

Although both teams have had continued success throughout their decorated history, including a boys state title in 1987, last year was the first time both teams combined made CIF finals. This year the team looks to continue with those traditions.

Bryon Hake, head coach of the boy’s cross country team, comments on the upcoming season, “This season’s team is great, the kids have been working hard all summer, they’ve been running a lot of miles and running some hard workouts.” The boy’s varsity team averages 60 miles per week.

The girls have also been working hard all summer with the varsity team averaging about 45 miles per week.

Eren Ramirez, head coach of the girl’s cross country team, feels “we have a lot of talent across the board in each single grade… we train year round… whether it’s hitting the weight room or adding up the mileage, there is always some sort of effort being put into the cross country season.”

Molly Hake, 12, varsity cross country runner said, “My two top personal goals are to get the Arroyo Mt. SAC record which I’ve been trying for 4 years, and to be Mission Valley League champ.” The current Mt. San Antonio College Arroyo school record is held by Eren Ramirez. She ran the 3-mile course in a time of 18.49 in 2003.

Navneet Ghotra, 11, also varsity cross country runner describes the team as very supportive and said “ I think of the team as my family.”

This year the cross country team will compete in division 2 but that is not the case for next year.

“In cross country, just like in track and field, the division you are in for CIF is based only on how many students go to your school,” said coach Hake.

Because the amount of students at Arroyo has dropped over the past year, Arroyo’s cross country team is now below the division 2 line which is 2090 students. The division that you are in depends on the previous year’s student enrollment. So this change will take effect next year.

Though it won’t affect the training or the racing for the most part, “there are one or two invitationals where we may race the smaller schools instead of with the larger schools but the biggest difference is at CIF,” said coach Hake.

“Maybe now we can even look at the possibility of going to State,” said coach Ramirez.

“This just gives us a chance to compete against teams that are more at our level and we always compete well when we compete against schools at our level,” said coach Hake.