Paly boys’ cross-country finished fifth, fourth, fourth and sixth at Crystal Springs Preview meet on Oct. 6, where races were organized by grade.

The freshman boys finished the 2.93 mile course with the best placing out of all grades.  Andrew Wilson (’15) placed first for Paly in the freshman race with a time of  18 minutes 23.5 seconds and an overall place of 16th.  The four other Paly runners to earn points for the Vikings in the freshman race were Rick Takeuchi (’15), Nihar Pol (’15), Nate Cook (’15) and Bryan Wong (’15).  The freshman team scored 146 points, 97 behind Los Gatos’ winning team score of 49.

The first mile of Crystal Springs starts off with a steep downhill which runners must then loop around and run back up before continuing on with the rest of the hilly course.

“The first part was better than the second,”Wilson said. “But the first mile we went way too fast.”

“I think we did well considering the fact that none of us ran as well as we could have, we just took it easy… I was sick, and I’m sure some other people were sick.  But even so, we still got third overall (correction: They placed fourth) and the varsity team qualified for CCS (Central Coast Sectionals). BEN

“I felt great, I guess we did very sell seeing as we’re qualified for CCS.  We all ran faster(than last year), especially myself … Hopefully (there will be) some better weather (next time), it’s quite chilly today.  “SAM

“The race was interesting … Next time we come here, I want to keep my consistency up from the first mile to the rest of it. Gavin Labine 10th grade