The year 2020 was not what I and many other seniors had anticipated. A lot more of the computer particularly, and a lot of what was the norm has just gone out the window. One thing I was personally looking forward to was King City High School Cross Country.
I was looking forward to that final senior breakout year. Still can’t believe it’s gone by so fast. I remember the first race I ran at Toro Park was in 2017 at the Chieftain-Spirit Classic Invitational. Time flies. However, despite the unexpected state of affairs, I have been able to remember the past.
In 2017, our varsity team qualified for CCS and we took sixth, but that was just the start of greatness it turned out.
The following year, in 2018, our varsity team came back on a ball of fire. We won three invitationals: Monterey Bay, Jackie Henderson and Chieftain-Spirit Classic. We took second in the Stanford Invitational and then third in the 2018 Mt. Sac Invitational.
Mt. Sac was special for us, a D4 team took third in a D1 race. Little King City went out and represented big — a lot like McFarland! Then we took first in the PCAL championship as well as all the PCAL Center meets, and then in CCS we took first in our section. Then at state, we placed fourth. Our 2018 team was the stuff of legend.
The year 2019 comes around, and we still had a strong group. Our 2019 team, however, dealt with many injuries throughout the year; we had four guys, and that includes me, get hurt and not be able to run some meets. It was crazy. We also had to see ourselves dethroned at that Jackie Henderson and Monterey Bay Invitational. Scotts Valley, who beat us in Stanford, got us at those meets. We ended up taking fourth at Jackie and second in Monterey Bay.
We went to Mt. Sac and in a sweepstakes race of D3 to D5 schools, we took fifth overall, but second out of seven schools for D4 schools.
The 2019 team is easy to roll aside, because our 2018 team was phenomenal, but despite all the injuries and everything else, we were dedicated to going out there and winning. With that attitude, we still placed high in Monterey Bay, D4 schools of Mt. Sac, won all the PCAL Center meets and the PCAL Championship. Plus, we even took first in the Gilroy Mustang Invitational.
Then, the 2019 varsity team — despite all odds — took first in CCS again! It honestly seemed like Scotts Valley would beat us, but we got them at CCS. Granted, they then kicked our butts at State, but the State place isn’t what our goal was, it was to do well as a team, win the league and CCS.
Covid has taken away the senior year of Cross Country I was hoping to have, but the one good thing I can say is that Covid has allowed me to really remember those two great years of Cross Country. I’m honored to have run with those two teams.
Thank you for reading, and let’s hope the future changes so some sort of normalcy returns.
