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By: Marshall Shank
In the announcements that you hear every day, whether it be in the background or your main focus of the average morning, you may often hear talk about the PAHS sports teams and the outcomes of their recent matches. But there is one sports team within the school that doesn't give a clear win or loss, that being Cross Country. That usually being “The Cross Country Team did well”, but there is more to the Cross Country Team than just doing “good” or “well”.
The primary reason why wins and losses for cross country meets aren't easily documented to the rest of the school is due to the fact that there is a more difficult way of telling what school or team wins a meet, because it's a race between teams of students, the goal is to have the least points possible, like golf.
Instead of strokes like other sports, students earn points to their school depending on their place, with the goal of earning the least points possible collectively, 1st place adds only one point to your team’s total, while places further back will add more points. Because of how many students there are and how complicated defining which school won a Cross Country meet. The scores of which school won almost never has enough time to be reported to the TV studio the next day as it would have to be added up and finalized by officials, placed onto the website, and still be able to have enough time for the studio members to add those scores to the announcements.
Photo courtesy of Emsley Krome
The Pen Argyl girls cross country team begins a race while competing against multiple other schools, like Bangor and Catasaqua. Each race at different schools has their own course, layout, distance, and conditions, so athletes have to be conditioned for every hill and path that they come across.
“The cross country team started off the season winning the AA Team title at the Lion's Invitational and are looking forward to finishing the season strong at both the League Championship meet and the PIAA District XI Championships, provided that everyone remains healthy, the Girls team has a really good chance to qualify for the PIAA State meet as a team,” Says Ryan Hinton, Coach.
To get the chance to be able to win team titles and having chances to qualify for the aforementioned PIAA State meet, being trained and conditioned for the sport is by far the most important part of Cross Country.
“For XC, we start off the season off by putting down lots of volume and base miles, getting the heart, lungs and legs used to multiple miles. At the start of the season, we are typically running 30-35 miles each week. I’m a big promoter of the saying "consistency is king (or queen).” Says Bob Krome, Coach. He also explains the importance of building up strength over time, Rome wasn't built in a day anyway.
As of October 16, both the boys and the girls teams have a winning record of 17-11 and 23-5, this year has been the first time that a winning record like this has been shown for such a small district such as Pen Argyl’s in multiple years, and against much larger schools like Northwestern Lehigh in the same league.
This fall season has been filled with many individual and team achievements for the Cross Country team that has given them a chance at larger competitions like the PIAA State meet, and though those achievements never often get the recognition that other sports teams receive, their success, as with all other clubs and sports, shouldn't ever be ignored.
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