A long season of intensive and spirited training paid off for the boys’ cross country team this year when they took third place at the State meet on Nov. 16th, accomplishing their goal of making the podium.
“Everyone brought their A game and gave it all their heart,” senior captain Krister Briehl said. “On an individual basis every guy was out there to do as well as they could and improve on a personal basis.”
While preparing for the State meet, the team placed second at multiple other meets throughout the season, including the Ragged Mountain Cup on Sept. 3, the Jefferson District Meet on Oct. 23, and the North Regional Cross Country Championship on Nov. 6.
Although the team lost 20 seniors at the end of their last season, “the loss…was not too detrimental to the team,” Briehl said. “We may have lost a lot of guys but the team is deep. There were guys willing to step up and assume [their] places.”
According to head coach Buz Male, “we try very hard to not just have a team that might be good when we have good athletes, but create a program that keeps teaching boys how to be better runners…and to always be in competition for a State Championship.”
“Last year was the first year since 2007 that we did not qualify for the State Championship, so we were extra motivated this year,” Male added.
This motivation paid off, as States was the team’s “greatest victory” this year, according to senior captain Ryan Thomas. “Buz and I are both very proud of how everyone raced…and the work they put in leading up to it,” Thomas said.
Thomas took second place at States, after placing first at the District meet and second at Regionals in the 5,000 meter run. “I was happy that I was able to cap off my high school cross country career being State runner up,” he said. Thomas was the only AHS runner who raced in the State meet all four years of high school and was an All-State runner three times.
The entire team “improved in that each guy got better, each guy running faster times than last year,” Briehl said. “Most of the guys made huge personal improvements, not just the top seven.”
Of the seven boys who ran at the State meet, “five will return for next year, which is the most we have ever had returning from a State meet team,” Male said.
Because a third of the team was eighth and ninth graders, “it was a challenge to get the new boys on the ‘same page’ as the varsity,” Male said. “That took a lot of energy from the coaching staff, but in the end it will be a big asset in our goal of having a program that is good every year!”
“The team was the largest that it has ever been,” Thomas said. “It was a great team, and I felt like for such a large team we were remarkably close. The team’s spirit is always, in my opinion, one of the best things about Albemarle Cross Country.”
According to Briehl, all of the team members are “so supportive of each other. Whenever we pass someone or someone runs by we always give an encouraging word,” he said. “Spirit is something we never lack on the team. We’re one big family.”
Running and racing “is something that takes a lot of mental strength, strength to keep pushing, to not give up,” Briehl said. “To keep going and exerting yourself though all the pain is hard….but daily cross country runners put themselves through pain to become better. The challenge is being able to daily put yourself through that pain. But it’s worth it in the end.”
