The Lady Hawks spent the first day of autumn, Saturday, September 21, in upstate New York at the Warwick Wave Mania Cross Country Invitational.

“We met up in front of Townsend at 6:45 today for an hour and a half long drive up to Warwick so we were all pretty sleepy to begin with, though once we got there, a mixture of excitement and nervousness definitely kicked in!” said sophomore Joanna Huo.

The afternoon began with the freshman team placing tenth in their 2400 meter event.

The varsity team similarly placed tenth in their 5k event with senior captains Stephanie Loo and Linda Wu both finishing in the top fifty. Juniors Gaby Kluzinski and Rythika Francis also set personal time records.

The junior varsity team also ran a 5k race and placed sixth with sophomore Yasmeen Ally and junior Nina Leeds finishing in the top thirty.

“I think that our team is fairly strong for just the beginning of the season, but what we need to work on is mentally being able to push ourselves,” said Gaby.

“They all gave one hundred percent of their energy to win the race,” freshman Dulce Cervantes said. “It was so fun to watch them cross the finish line because they’re all amazing runners and people.”

Gaby added, “The air was fresh and the view was beautiful. Music was playing and even through all the anxiousness from our race, we still had a lot of fun.”