JMS athletes participate in a new sport: cross country

Gallery • 12 Photos

Aaron Garcia

Adriana Lopez (eighth grader) taking a picture for the Bulldog Bugle.

At our school, we have a sport called cross-country. It’s a running sport that times your speed.  Students race for two miles or one mile against athletes from others schools.  Cross country is a co-ed sport, meaning both boys and girls can participate. This sport is fairly new at JMS: last year the team ran two races, and this is the first year the team participated in all six races in the season.  The coaches who help train and support the team are Mr. Finer and Mr. Lo.  On October 21, the team participated in a race held at Edward Vincent, Jr. Park in Inglewood.

Eighth grader Gabby Olmeda, who is a member of the cross country team, said, “Cross country is a race where you race competitively against students and schools, and you get timed on it on who is the fastest. Before the race, I felt anxious and scared, even though I had already did it. I don’t know why it was like the adrenaline, I guess. I felt like I wanted to quit. I was very tired. Because after the race, the race finished, like I got Aaron’s sweater, and I collapsed on the floor.”

Another team member is eighth grader Litzy Sales, and she said, “Someone who inspired me to join cross country was Mr. Finer because he was the first person to put the idea into my head. And I was really scared because I really didn’t know, and it was my first time joining cross country. When we first entered cross country, and it was our first race, I was really scared because I saw a lot of other schools and like they were running faster than me. But like when I started running, it was really calm because no one was smiling or talking because we were, um, running for an hour. After I was really excited because later Mr. Finer told us our minutes and I got much better than last time.”

AJMS had an MVP (Most Valuable Player) at this race.  That was Christian Fuentes, who is in eighth grade. At this race he was the fastest person who ran for AJMS and was recognized for placing amongst the top 20 students in his race.

Mr Finer said, “I was really impressed. Seeing how much everyone improved and how competitive the team got at the end [of the season]. Especially as the team, the boys’ team, we were beating a lot of other schools by the end of the season, half the other teams that were there, including fancy private schools. Ya, they did really well.”

The effort of all the runners demonstrated that they are strong and able to overcome challenges, both mentally and physically.