Brandon

At Natividad Creek Park in the Salinas City Championships, sophomore Fernando Herrera passes senior Erik Luna, entering the second mile of the course. The varsity boys placed first, winning back to back City Championships, and their fifth in seven years. “I was feeling good, the warm up felt really good, coach [Munoz] told me to run a 5:25 [per mile average],¨ Herrera said.

A year ago, the boy’s cross country team won the league championship in the Gabilan division of the PCAL, qualifying for CCS. The team has big ambitions this year, “[We’re looking for the] boys to win the league championship for the second time in a row and for them to qualify for state,” Coach Steven Munoz said. 

According to Munoz, the most promising runners this season are seniors Erik Luna, Jason Medina, junior Gustavo Perez,  and sophomore Fernando Herrera. “They have all been putting in a lot of work [into their practice],” Munoz said.

The team had to say goodbye to the seniors, Harry Ordiano, Jamie Tena, and Brian Pedroza, but they left an impact on junior Juan Perez, “All of last year’s senior boys inspired me to be like them.” 

This inspiration from the previous seniors drove Perez to be one of the many talented runners on the team and to battle for their spots in varsity every race. As a result, each race has a different set of runners. “They’re all back and forth,” Munoz said. “we’re looking for a solid [team of] seven.” 

One challenge going on this season is the amount of injuries happening to the runners. This has been the team’s current weakness, “[We try} staying healthy, not getting hurt or injured,” Munoz said.

The team is off to a strong start, winning all divisions at Center Meet 1 at Palo Corona. Erik Luna led the team to victory, finishing with a time of 17:36. “I felt pretty good, I wanted to help out the team,” Luna said. This gave confidence and set up a trend for the runners, “It was just showing the strength that we have with our top four, that any of them could be [one of the leads] it was a little bit of a surprise but at the same time I knew he was capable of doing it,” Munoz said. 

At the Salinas City Championship, the team claimed bragging rights for the second time in a row, and for the fifth time in seven tries. Fernando Herrera hit 16:10 and led the boys to victory. “I was feeling good, the warm up felt really good, coach [Munoz] told me to run a 5:25 [per mile average],¨ Herrera said. The team had a set plan in mind to pass everyone else in the race, “I told them that they should all cruise to a 5:25 on the first mile and then from there basically you know run their own race afterward, just stay together,” Munoz said. 

At Center Meet 2 at Toro Park, Gustavo Perez, who recovered from an injury, led the boys to victory with a time of 16:54. “I felt great to finally race and help my teammates again,” Perez said. “It was a great comeback, helped out the team a lot but we’re also resting our team for Center Meet 3 because it is still lingering,” Munoz said. 

At Center Meet 3 at North Monterey County, the team didn’t race, but they still feel confident in taking the win for the league championship. “All we have to do is get first place [at PCAL] and we’ve got it in the bag,” Perez said. “As long as we all push each other at the championship we should all be fine.” 

The team has been running every race with pain the entire season, “We decided to rest them to get them healthy, but even getting zero points at this meet, we could still be league champions if we win at league championships,” Munoz said. 

There have been noticeable changes in leads each race, Munoz believes this is both a good and possibly bad thing. “It’s good to have the boys being so close, but the negative is having divisions amongst the team,” Munoz said. 

With PCALs coming up, the team has to win this last race to win the title. Munoz feels confident in the team’s ability to win the league championship title and qualify for CCS, as long as they’re staying healthy and working hard.