Aliso Niguel’s Cross Country team, led by Coach Walsh, started their season with their first race of the season on Aug. 30 at Trabuco Hills High School.
The Saddleback Cup, their first race, was a two-mile-long course. Although Aliso did not come in first they did have great performances all around.
Aliso was led by Faris Radieddine (12) who ran a personal record and came in seventh place with a time of 9:24.4. Not far behind was Parker McAdam (11) with a 9:35.7 and Karson Brunke (11) at 9:45.9, also breaking their personal records.
After his race, Karson comments, “My individual goal is to train hard and maybe break the junior school record and have fun while doing it.”
As a team, the Aliso boys have strived towards motivating each other during workouts and pushing each other to work harder. The boys are working towards qualifying for big meets, including the state meet, and continuously working towards improving their team’s top five average personal records.
Another way they have seen improvements is by lengthening their weekend runs, cooperating with each other and running tougher courses. Last year their weekend runs used to be much shorter and some would run it alone; but this year they run as a team, with some running 14 miles.
All their achievements couldn’t happen if it wasn’t for Coach Walsh. Walsh who has been teaching for over two decades and has been running the team for years. All the boys on the team look up to Coach Walsh as a mentor and believe that they have much to learn from him.
Last year the boys achieved their goal of becoming the fastest team in Aliso history, and this year their goal is to make state. This is a difficult goal to conquer for the team because they are in the fastest area of our country; however, the boys will continue to work hard to achieve their goal.
