After a two hour drive, MVHS cross country reached Half Moon Bay for the Artichoke Invitational on Oct. 4. The race course is 2.33 miles on grass, dirt and track. The main challenge is at the final hill. Coach Kirk Flatow advised the runners to pick up speed at the hills, when everyone else is dropping out.

Six divisions, frosh-soph girls and boys, varsity B girls and boys and varsity girls and boys,  competed in their respective orders. The top 25 runners in each division earn a medal, and the teams of each division with the highest ranking runners win plaques. The team won two plaques and around 40 medals in all.

The frosh-soph boys and the varsity girls each brought home a plaque as the champions of their divisions. Senior Jenny Xu earned second place in the varsity girls race and ran a time of 14:26. Senior Rohan Choudhury placed first among the varsity boys of 14 other schools, running a time of 12:05.

Placement is determined by points, and the fewer  points a school receives, the higher it places. In the frosh-soph girls division, Alameda High School scored 64 and MVHS earned 65 points,  losing  first place by one point. The girls jokingly blamed each other for not running faster but still expressed disappointment over their close loss.

“If I had sped up on the last lap, I could have beaten that girl,” sophomore Parvarthi Meyyappan said, who placed third with a time of 15:45 for frosh-soph girls.