At the end of a race there is always relief.
A banner is a bonus.
The Burnaby Mountain Secondary senior boys cross country team got both of those during the past high school season, including a league and Vancouver and District crown. They capped it with a strong result at provincials two weeks ago.
Cracking the top-10 among teams – finishing in ninth, just 10 points back of seventh – was an impressive result for a Lions squad that features three Grade 12s, two Grade 11s and one each from Grade 9 and 10.
Where each team’s top-four athletes account for the points, an interesting twist is how the two youngest runners contributed to the final tally.
In a field of nearly 240 runners from more than 30 high schools, ninth could be considered a starting point for next year.
“I like the competition, the idea of getting faster and getting more competitive,” remarked Kosta Adzic, a Grade 10 athlete who posted the team’s second-best time (26:06) on the 6.9-kilometre course at Jericho Beach. “I do a lot of soccer and (I’m) kind of crazy about it and compete at the highest level, so I do a lot of cross training.
“They’re a nice group of guys, and I feel welcome around them.”
The team’s top finisher, Grade 12 Alex Romero, ended up just missing the top-15 line, placing 18th with a district-best time of 24:21 and the desire to have climbed higher.
“Honestly I personally think I could have done better,” said Romero, who trains with the Royal City Track and Field Club. “We had club provincials the week before and I got a better place than I did at high schools. I guess it was just an off-day for me.
“This year it was like 240 kids at the high schools, and at club it was like 60 top runners. It’s just like trying to weave between people, an obstacle (course).”
Burnaby Mountain athletic director and coach Larry Ryan said Romero’s dedication to running has spread through the team and been the kind of leadership that gets everyone working harder.
“Each of the boys have their own running goals and they support each other to try and achieve them in training. … Alex has definitely set the standard for our school, and these boys coming up behind him want to match or beat that,” noted Ryan.
Adzic performed well despite coming to the meet sick.
“Kosta came to race feeling quite ill but he is a true competitor with a lot of grit,” said Ryan. “He knew that he was going (to) hurt even more than normal but he would never have considered not running.”
The team – Kenneth Doolan, Mark Fukusaku, Anthony Perera, Rezo Pkhakadze, Ryan Roberts, Adzic and Romero – had shown over the local meets the kind of potential they had, including a result where the top five finishers were all Lions.
Getting inside that top-10 at the provincials was where the team element really shone, Ryan said.
“All year I stressed to the runners the importance of the team members that don’t finish in the top four for our team,” he said. “They can’t let up thinking that they don’t matter, because they still have the ability to displace other teams’ scoring runners. That is exactly what happened at the provincials.”
In the end, Romero (18th), Adzic (60th), Roberts (93rd) and Perera (143rd) counted directly to the school’s final tally, which officially tied them with Holy Cross in overall standings. It was the results of Fukusaku (156th), Doolan (198th) and Pkhakadze (205th) that helped fuel the team's top-four to their strong finish.
Doolan noted that while his placing wasn’t an improvement on last year, he did cut five minutes off that 2016 time.
“In the preparation of this cross country season I started to take it more seriously. I went on longer runs, around an hour or two, every week. I knew I was in better shape and I knew I’d do better this year,” said Doolan.
Adzic, who plays for Coquitlam Metro-Ford of the EA Sports Soccer Premier League, said running is a perfect complement for his other sports passion.
“Mentally, I think it’s very similar. When I run, I play hungry. I hate coming in last. I like the idea of doing better and better and I feel playing soccer and running allows me to do both,” he said.
“With these guys I feel motivated to always do better. They are very competitive.”
