The Lick-Wilmerding Girls Cross Country team won their Division 5 State Championships setting the individual and team school record on the state’s course.
The race was hosted over the Thanksgiving break on Saturday, November 30th in Fresno at Woodward park. After a strong showing at the North Coast Sectionals race where the team not only won in Division 5 but also would have beat the top teams in Divisions 1 and 4 LWHS was favored to win their race.
The team ran their strongest race of the season as all 7 runners set personal records for their 5k times. The top runner Mira Terdiman ‘20 ran in at 18:47.4 minutes setting a school course record even after suffering from a 102 degree fever days before. Closely following her Maya Lacamp ‘21 just edged in under 19 minutes with her time of 18:59.9 putting her at #3 on the school’s All-Time List for the course. Nine seconds later Elliot Singer ‘20 finished moving herself up to #4 on the All-Time List.
Having pack run almost the entire race the rest of the team came in about 30 seconds later lead by Cate Kreutzen ‘22 who put in a final kick to finish 10 seconds ahead of Faith Dyogi ‘22 who was the team’s fifth runner. Kreutzen and Dyogi secured 9th and 10th on the All-Time List respectively.
In Cross Country, only the team’s top 5 runners score and a team’s total score is calculated by adding up the top 5 runner’s places, a lower score being better. So with Dyogi across the line ahead of the 4th and 5th runners from University High School, the main rival for the championship title, a win was pretty expected.
Kaira Shlipak ‘22 and Joya Terdiman ‘22 finished out the team both coming in under 20 minutes, moving to 12 and 14 on the All-Time List respectively, making Lick-Wilmerding the first Division 5 Girls team to ever have all their runners run sub 20 5ks.
Singer pointed out that this speed seen from the back half of the team was a large part of their success this season. “The teams that win are the teams whose fourth, fifth, and sixth runners are really good.”
The LWHS team ended with a score of 73 beating the second-place school, University High School, by 41 points. Their total team time, 1:36.2, put them at 4th place on the Division 5 All-Time list for the course.
Singer attributes their success this season to their focus on pack running and team bonds. “It was about running well and running for each other” she said. She pointed out that though Cross Country is often presented as an individual sport having a successful team like LWHS’s actually requires working with each other. “The tight bonds as a team make us more willing to put in the extra push to stay together” she said.
Dyogi agreed: “You work together and you push each other to go faster.” As a newcomer and underclassman on the team, Dyogi felt very supported and welcomed. She says it was important that “it wasn’t just a team, we were friends.”
