After a long summer of practices the cross country team is determined to make it all the way. Cross country coach Orlando Hairston and his team are determined and ready to outrun the competition.

“Our goals this season are to keep the kids we have and bring back the District Championship to Del Valle for both boys and girls teams and also get two teams to qualify for regional meets,” Hairston said.

Due to their previous success they have been able to recruit more people to the team especially younger members to have a stronger, more powerful team on the track.

“Our numbers have grown, last year we had about 15 boys and 10 girls on the team and this year we have 22 boys and 15 girls on the team with a majority of the team being sophomores and freshmen,” Hairston said.

The team is in good shape even after the departure of the girls team coach Valerie Hairston. The Ladies want to show that they can do well.

“We miss her, she was the enforcer and the hard one and I’m the nice guy but everything should stay the same, but her presence will be missed,” Hairston said.

The team is in the best shape that they can be in because of their vigorous practices that they do almost every day of the week and it shows when they compete.

“We practice for most of the week like on Monday and Wednesdays we do speed work running on the track, on Tuesday we do long runs and Friday we do a strategy run to get ready for the competition on Saturday,” senior  Andres Miranda said.

The team has some great motivation especially before they are about to compete. They have a great way of making each other gain the confidence to finish in the competition.

“We say an encouraging speech to each other and then after that we go out and race,” Miranda said.

The team’s record shows why they have been champions and one of the best even though they didn’t meet their goals last year like they were hoping to.

“On the boys side we were district champions seven years in a row but last year we lost to Eastlake. On the girls side it’s been a struggle because they haven’t been running like they used to but are slowly trying to get back on track,” Hairston said.

Despite their success they still have some minor issues they need to improve on especially when it comes to having the confidence to know that they have it in them to finish on top in the track meets.

“The main thing to work on is mental toughness, they have the training they need and they work hard but they seem to lack the confidence every now and then but we can help them work on this issue,” Hairston said.