On Friday, Nov. 3rd, Decatur High School (DHS) girl’s varsity cross-country (XC) team placed first in the 5AAAAA State Championships. This is the second consecutive year the DHS girl’s varsity team has won.
Last year the team was led by, then-senior, Gabby Malerba. This year, junior, Sophie D’Elena led the team to their victory. Finishing her 5K with a time of 18:48 seconds, D’Elena placed second along with two other DHS students in the top ten. This is a DHS school record for the course based at Carrollton High School.
With that being said, DHS was not supposed to win state originally. “We weren’t favored to get first place, so we went into the meet thinking that rankings are just rankings,” Penelope Goebel said.
Goebel, a senior, and captain of the team, recalls the emotions before the race as nervousness in addition to a huge sense of excitement.
However, when the race started, DHS immediately made good pace, D’Elena closely competing with a runner from Cambridge High School for first place. Other DHS runners, Maggie Welp and Anna Blaich, kept themselves in the top ten runners during the race.
An important strategy of DHS’s team was overtaking runners on hills. “Carrollton is a brutal course and it’s very mental. We practice hills daily and so we have an advantage on the hills during the course,” Goebel said.
The strategy proved successful, as DHS finished first for girls varsity. Lots of enthusiasm and tears from DHS XC teammates were found at the finish line, as DHS established itself as back-to-back state champions.
