Senior Chris Sandoval stands poised and ready in the box, one foot on the start line, the other behind him, ready to launch him forward. Beside him stands fellow senior and close friend, Noah Antony, who also waits in nervous anticipation for the shot to go off, signaling the start of the race. But they both have much larger goals than finishing this particular race that they are making huge strides toward; winning the state championship for cross-country.

“We want to be the first team from Har-Ber to hang a state championship banner,” says Antony. “The expectation is to win state.”

As seniors, both Antony and Sandoval hope to leave a legacy behind. Their team looks up to them as leaders, not only because of their success in the sport of cross-country, but also the way that they treat the team.

“I’m not really looking to place, I’m wanting this trip to be more of a team bonding trip,” said Sandoval before the first meet.

The beginning of the season, according to the team, was not exactly smooth sailing. With Joe Coach Crommett taking lead of the team, both boys agreed that it definitely took some adjusting.

“We’ve just never really had a real coach before Crommett. Unger’s main focus was the girls’ team and we worked with Reuben Reina a little bit, but that was pretty much it. We basically coached ourselves,” said Sandoval.

As the sort of self-appointed leaders of the team, Sandoval and Antony had difficulty with the change at first. The cross-country team has always had the reputation of a closely knit family, but recruitments are challenging that dynamic slightly.

“Our numbers have doubled,” said Sandoval. “Most of the new guys are people that didn’t run at all this summer.”

Tension had the potential to build up and boil over between Crommett and his boys, but on both ends, there was a good amount of give and take, and the team now seems to be getting along very well.

Through all of this, though, the boys never lost their hunger to be state champions. To achieve this goal of theirs, practices are rigorous and tough. The team is training more than they have in years past, part of which comes from Crommett’s new style of coaching.

“We’ve been meeting at 6:30 a.m. since the beginning of summer. We’ve been doing distances from four miles and up so far. We’re going to start doing speed training and other stuff like that after our first race,” said Antony. The bar is being set very high for this team, especially for this group of senior guys. Majority of the original runners on the team have been running together since junior high, surprising onlookers, coaches, and parents alike of the rare talent that those boys presented even then.

“We won the Chile Pepper in ninth grade, which is a huge accomplishment at that age,”

said Sandoval, explaining that the race is an extremely large meet where runners compete in the 5k division, which is about 3.1 miles.

Antony and Sandoval have a clear goal ahead, equipped with the talent and a solid plan to be able to achieve the victory that has been on their minds since before they even attended high school.