Personal bests, great race locations, and a large team are all part of the Englewood cross country team for the 2025 season.
Senior Leon Huntington is in his second season, “Well, I played my sophomore year, I quit my junior year, and now I’m back for senior year.”
He and other runners spent the summer and the start of the school year doing long runs and working out to get into the best shape to compete, “My goal is to run as hard as I can and have a great season. I’m looking at underneath 22 minutes. I’m getting close,” Huntington said.
Athletes run a 5K in each race. That’s 3.1 miles. The sport provides rich opportunities for personal growth, as athletes push their limits, both physically and mentally.
On the women’s side, the team has its largest group of racers in the last few years. Junior
Lily Gutierrez is really liking the challenge, “I mean, it’s pretty fun. I really like the team. I like spending time outside.”
This is her second season, “I mean, hopefully I’ll keep getting those PR looks,” meaning when the athletes are running, they have a chance to get a personal record.
Coach Sean Stettler is in his third year coaching cross country, “my seventh year coaching track and field here. I ran cross country all through high school and college, and have been a runner and a coach for the last 20 years.”
He is proud of the runners so far, “It’s been a good season so far. We’re only two weeks into the season, technically, or three weeks into the season, but we had a really good first meet. Our girls got their first team score in many, many years, and our boys placed seventh with a bunch of new freshmen and upperclassmen. So yeah, it was a great start to the season.”
Coach Stetler breaks down the sport, “Cross Country is an endurance sport where a team of athletes runs 5000 meters of 5k or 3.1 miles, and it’s scored as a team. So the way it’s scored is that the lowest score wins. So you want people to place as high as possible, so that you have the lowest score. For example, if your team goes 1,2,3,4,5, that’s a score of 15. It’s a perfect score in cross country. So the goal is for your runners to place as high in the race as possible, and we have a league championship, a regional championship, and a state championship.”
He says championships are possible this year, “Two years ago, our boys won the league championship, which was great, but then we placed sixth at the regional championship, and they took the top four teams to state. So that was the best season we’ve had since I’ve been coaching. But I think this season, our boys especially will do considerably better. And we’ve never even had a girls’ team get a team tour at the league championship or regional championship, so it’ll definitely be our best year for the girls in a long time.”
The cross country schedule of races and team members is listed on www.thepirateer.com
