By Connor Fleck and Jeremy Torres
The Granada Hills Charter (GHC) girls cross-country team is truly an extraordinary group and one of this school’s most consistent teams. Although this sport is far from the limelight, these runners are truly some of the finest in their sport.
Cross-country running is a sport in which both teams and individuals run various distances over natural terrain, rather than on a track. High school races are generally 5,000 meters or 3.1 miles long. Even though many focus on individual achievements in the sport, it is a team sport.
The object of this sport is to have your team finish the fastest by combining individual scores. The top five finishers from each team are used for scoring and determining which team wins. The lowest score or shortest time wins. Even though only the first five runners’ scores count, everyone still gets to run and try their best.
The girls cross-country team isn’t spoken about as much as other sports such as football or basketball. They don’t have a Homecoming game or get pep rallies.
However, female cross country has been one of the most successful teams at GHC winning four City Championships over the past 5 years in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2021.]
Recent graduate, Sofia Abrego was our main powerhouse winning first place in both the 2018 and 2019 City Championships. She was a competitive person most of her life and had been a runner for over ten years coming into the City Championships. Abrego now runs for the Dartmouth University team.
Another recent graduate, Isabel Catagnola won the championship last year. She now goes to the University of San Diego.
This year’s team remains very strong, filling in the shoes of graduated runners. All of the top five runners on our team run 5,000 meters in under 19 minutes. The current top runner is senior and captain Jocelyn Pocheco with a recent 17.55 score.
“I like running because I’m a very competitive person and seeing competitors’ times always makes me feel like I could do better,” Pacheco said.
Top runners behind Pocheco are sophomore Meztli Velazquez (17.58), senior Naima Salazar (18.15), freshman Samantha Pacheco (18.20), and senior Zaida Velazquez (18.38). The team hopes to capture their sixth City Championship this year as well with strong runners like these.
GHC’s girls cross country team has been lucky enough to have some of the fastest runners in the state. They were even fortunate enough to be invited to the Oregon Nike meet, which is a very exclusive invitation-only meet that they haven’t been invited to since 2019.’GHC’s female cross country team has been lucky enough to have some of the fastest runners in the state. They were even fortunate enough to be invited to the Oregon Nike meet, which is a very exclusive invitation-only meet that they haven’t been invited to since 2019.
“We went to Portland this weekend for a big race. It went well but could’ve gone better since we were moved into the more experienced higher-ranked runners” Pocheco said.
Attending the Oregon meet was a privilege in itself, signifying the quality and determination of the girls on the team
The girls cross country team is finishing up their season. They had league finals yesterday and will move on to the Los Angeles City preliminary competition next week.
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