As the cross country season kicked off, Everett ran against Lynn Classical on Wednesday, Sept. 11. The race course was a total of 3 miles. Before the race began both teams started warming up. Everett started with stretches and doing a warmup lap around the course. As the race started at Rivergreen, Everett was prepared. The team had been waiting for this moment since the beginning of the season in late August.
As the race started, junior co-captain Lucas Nunez took a head start against Lynn Classical. “I kept going since my goal for the end of the season is to finish top 10 in GBL Finals so I can win a medal,” Nunez said. Even though Elmudesi from Lynn Classical followed behind him, his dreams of wanting to win the race so badly inspired him to stay strong and push himself even more.
Junior Anthony Whitlow held up right behind Nunez and Elmudesi from Lynn Classical. “I want to be the best Everett Squad we had,” Anthony said. Twin brother Jeremy Whitlow held strong right behind him. “I was slightly worried before the race started as injuries were messing me up but I felt confident while warming up.” Even though the twin brothers were injured, they kept pushing through and never gave up.
Senior co-captain David Huezo-Erazo overtook Disaia on Lynn Classical’s team and stayed before him. “Overall I felt prepared. Though I feel I needed a little more preparation if I was going to perform my very best,” Huezo-Erazo said.
“Once I joined I became very passionate about the sport and actually enjoyed it,” Huezo-Erazo said. “I loved running and spending time with my teammates since I feel like I belong.”
Even though the distance seemed long, no one gave up. The thoughts and aspirations the runners had inspired them to keep moving forward and to push themselves as hard as they could. As the second and final lap came up, the Everett team still held up strong.
The key to winning this race was pacing Lynn Classical and speeding up eventually so they could surpass them. This is exactly what sophomore Carlos Pagan Landeo did. He ended up pacing Henneberry on the Lynn Classical Team. It was Pagan Landeo’s first year and first race for cross country. “I felt as prepared as possible for that race and gave it my all,” he said.
Sophomore Domincio Delle Rose also used the pacing strategy. “I felt pretty prepared about the race since I knew what most of Lynn Classical ran from last year,” Delle Rose said.
The Everett cross country team is full of all types of runners. There are runners on the team who’ve done previous seasons and some who are newcomers to the sport. Junior Byran Lewis is a first-time cross country runner and ran his first-ever race on Wednesday.
“I wanted to complete a race without stopping,” he said. Even though he caught himself slowing down nearing the second lap the thought of winning the race motivated him to keep pushing himself and finish the race.
(Shashi Pokhrel)
As the race ended, families, coaches, and other teammates cheered them on. It was a burst of excitement. All their hard work and efforts came to the very last moment. Lucas Nunez sprinted towards the finish line hoping to have a big gap against him and Elumdesi. The twins, Anthony and Jeremy Whitlow, trailed behind. This gave hope for the Everett cross country team to believe they had just run fast enough to win against Lynn Classical.
In the end, Lucas Nunez came in first place with a 17:43.3 finishing time. Anthony Whitlow came in 3rd with a time of 18:33.7. Jeremy Whitlow came in 4th with a time of 19.04.8. David Heuzo-Erazo came in 7th place with a time of 20:02.8. Carlos Pagan Landeo came in 9th with a 22:02 finishing time. Dominico Delle Rose came in 11th with a 23:14.4 finishing time. Lastly, Bryan Lewis came in eighteenth place with a finishing time of 28:56.5. Even though only the top 5 runners of the Everett team’s times counted to see who won the race. All their dedication to maintaining their speed caused Everett to win the race.
“I was very proud of the team on their victory over Lynn Classical,” coach Brendan Hahesy said. “It was a credit to all the hard work that the team has put in since the start of the season.”
As far as Everett winning the race itself, there was a record broken. Co-captain Lucas Nunez broke the course record by a total of twenty-nine seconds. “I’m very proud of Lucas,” Hahesy said. “Lucas has put in a lot of hard work over the last several years as a member of our team. And, it was nice to see it pay off in such a big way by him breaking our course record on Wednesday.”
Altogether, it was an eventful day for the Everett High School cross country team. Personal records and course records were broken. The hard work and training the team had done led them to the victory over Lynn Classical.
