On September 28, the boys cross country team had their second meet at Van Cortlandt Park. All New York city schools attended this meet, meaning the city’s top runners participated in the event.

The day started off with the freshman boys, who ran the 1.5 mile. Freshman Patrick Menchaca finished the race and placed 74th out of 91 runners.

The sophomore boys then continued with their 2.5 mile run. Sophomore Abdoulaye Diallo led his teammates by placing 12th out of 93 runners with a time of 16:48, followed by Noah Silversmith, who placed 16th with a time of 16:54.

In the varsity boys 3.1 mile run, junior captain Yash Sharma placed 12th among 159 varsity runners, and led the team with his time of 18:35, beating his previous record by about 2 seconds. Junior Zachariah Ooi, who placed 26th in this division with his time of 19:20, beat his time at the first meet, which was 19:47. Senior captain Thomas Sullivan and junior Igor Portnoi  managed to place 60th and 79th respectively.

Medals were given to the runners that placed within 30th place in their divisions. Both Yash and Zach were given medals in the varsity division, while sophomore runners Abdoulaye Noah were also awarded medals.

Overall, the team members felt they could have done better, even those who won medals.

Junior Junwoo Shin, who also ran in the varsity race, was optimistic, saying, “We did pretty well considering that some of us aren’t even distance runners. Of course, we could have done better, but our whole team was not present and this is just the beginning, so we’ll only get better from here.”

Yash also adds, “The fact that it was a city meet made it harder to place.”