The Palo Alto High School boys’cross country team exceeded their own expectations at the Lowell Invitational, Saturday, Sept. 17.
The team ended the day in seventh place with impressive performances by a handful of young runners.
Nikolai Solgaard (‘12) led the team with a third place finish, completing the course in 15:35. Ben Hawthorne (’13) was the next Paly runner to finish in 38th place with a time of 17:01. Ben May (’13) finished 43rd, Sam Carilli (’12) finished 44th, William Hall (’12) finished 52nd and Justin Zhang (‘13) finished 54th.
“I was super excited with my finish today,” Solgaard said. “I was expecting an eighth to tenth place finish and I [ran a personal record for this track] and I beat a lot of a guys I didn’t think I was better than.”
Although Solgaard ran a solid race, the biggest surprise to the team was the performance by the younger members of the team. Most of the runners that ran were either running varsity for the first time or inexperienced varsity runners.
“Ben May, Hawthorne and Zhang are new to running varsity and it was cool to see them run a good race. Some younger guys really stepped up today,” Coach Joe Ginanni said.
However, the team did have some concerns after the race. Although the team exceeded it’s owns expectations, it will need to improve in order to make a mark in league play and CCS.
“As the season progresses I think we’re looking for a little more consistency from all of our runners. We need to close the gap between Nikolai and the other runners.” Ginanni said.
The team will next compete in the Stanford Invitational on Sept. 24.