By: Owen Fugit 

Media Productions Editor 

On Sep. 13, the LGHS cross country team gave it their all against six other schools from across the valley at Lynbrook High School. Races were broken up into groups based on grade and gender: Freshman Boys, Sophomore boys, Varsity B Boys and Girls, and Varsity Boys and Girls. The first group up was the Freshman Boys.   

For freshman Meehan Sibal, this was his first time racing with an LGHS jersey, but don’t be fooled, because he did not disappoint. Placing third with a time of 12:03.4, Sibal has a bright future ahead on the track. The Freshman Boys team also secured fifth, seventh, and tenth place. 

The sophomore boys raced second. Sahil Agarwal and Cameron Nakhjiri, placed third and fourth respectively, with times mere seconds apart. Madan Grewal came in sixth place, rounding out the top ten positions for LGHS in this event. 

JV Girls and Varsity Girls teams ran third and fourth. Junior Varsity Girls runner Sarah Emerick placed third with a time of 15:24.8, while sophomore Ria Sharma landed a fifth-place finish. 

With the most runners in the top ten out of all the schools present, the Varsity Girls placed six runners in the top ten. LGHS senior Sophie Tau won first with a time of 12:20.0, over 20 seconds faster than the second-place runner from Wilcox. Other Varsity Girls’ runners placed third, sixth, eighth, ninth, and tenth.

The final two races of the evening were the JV and Varsity Boys teams. The LGHS JV team put up a good fight and secured 23rd place for their fastest runner. The Varsity Boys’ race was an exciting race, with a finishing sprint between LGHS Sophomore Aydon Stefanopoulos and Wilcox senior John Cooper. Both runners rounded the last turn of the Lynbrook track, Stefanopoulos trailing Cooper until “the 5-hour energy kicked in,” and Stefanopoulos passed Cooper, setting a blistering time of 10:27.7 which was two seconds faster than Cooper, and subsequently the fastest time of the day.

After the race, Stefanopoulos said that his outlook on the season is “looking good,” which is a reassuring sign. With the season off to a good start, and with many of the LGHS runners finishing higher up on the leaderboard, it’s safe to say that this could be a great season for LGHS.