While most students were running away from the start of school, the boys’ cross country team began its season Aug. 21 in Temple with two runners placing in the top 20.

Sophomore Weston Romero – the youngest and fastest varsity runner – earned 12th place for finishing in 17 minutes and 34 seconds; junior Joe Hernandez placed 17th with a time of 18 minutes and 11 seconds.

“I’m just glad to be able to compete on varsity with upperclassmen and motivate my teammates to run faster,” Romero said.

Despite the efforts of the team, McNeil placed seventh out of nine. The meet was scored by adding the top five runners of each team for each participating school. Varsity boys had a total time of 1:32:48, with the first place winners, Anderson High School, finishing with a time of 1:28:17.4. Junior varsity boys won first place with a score of 1:37:37.8.

“The course at Temple contained a huge hill that tired us all out, I think it had a large impact on the first race’s slower times, ” senior Nick Sego said.

The varsity team worked to overcome the rocky start of the Temple meet, and it showed with the results of their next meet at Belton. The team placed 17th out of 26 teams with a team score of 1:29:37.7, opposed to first place finisher Georgetown with a score of 1:22:54.

Other teammates said the improvement has other reasons than difference in terrain.

“Yeah, the hill was bad, but I think a big reason for our improvement was just putting in a lot of effort at practice,” Hernandez said.

Hernandez decreased his time by about 35 seconds between the two races.

Junior Benjamin Duong decreased his time from 18:21 to 17:42 between meets making a huge step on his own path. He makes it a personal mission to push himself harder each race.

“This is what I want to do with my life,” Duong said. “Every race I feel like I am getting a step closer to my goal.”