After a disappointing fifth place finish in leagues last year, the Boys’ Cross Country team is revved up and ready to improve with the dawn of a new season. Last year’s young roster has, matured giving way to a new group of strong upperclassmen.

“We have a majority of a returning team,” Ben May (‘13) said. “We didn’t really have a senior class last year so we are looking for a lot of guys to step up.”

This year, the team is led by Nikolai Solgaard (‘12), who is coming of an impressive 2010 season in which he qualified for and ran in the CCS meet. He hopes he can carry this momentum into the 2011 season and perform even better overall.

“Nikolai really proved himself as a leader during the time trial,” May said.

The team also has other promising prospects backing up Solgaard. Ben Hawthorne (‘13) and Justin Zhang (‘13) anchor a strong junior class. Both performed well in the team time trial and ran well in last season. Sam Carilli (‘12) also ran well in the team time trial, finishing just behind Hawthorne and Zhang. Two underclassmen, Samuel Mignot (’13) and Jack Hansen (’13), also plan on running for the varsity team this year.

The team is ready to shoot for a league championship but they are going to have to overcome some strong competition in their league.

“Mountain View [High School] and Gunn [High School] are our biggest competition in league,” Kevin Lavelle (’13) said. “They both have very strong varsity teams.”

However this does not faze the team as they go into their first meet, Thursday September 9, at Gunn High School.