By Ben Giesser
Sports Reporter
As the girls’ cross-country team works hard to prepare for their first meet on Wednesday at Wayland, Denebola got a chance to sit down with two of the girls’ captains, Emily Bulczynski and Caroline Barry, and talk to them about their expectations for the season.
What are you looking forward to this season?
Bulczynski: “We are looking forward to a lot of improvement from our team overall and for many freshman, sophomores, and juniors to step up to the challenge of helping out [to] score points for the team after we lost our top two runners (Clare Martin and Katie Collins) this year.”
What would you say is the team’s biggest strength is at this point in the season?
Bulczynski: “We haven’t had any meets yet, but we’ve been all putting in a lot of effort to do hard workouts and runs so we’re building a lot of endurance and strength that will help us race well later in the season.”
Barry: “Also we’ve been doing really well with people stepping up and taking on bigger roles. Towards the beginning of pre-season, our lineup was very uncertain. Lately, we’ve had a lot of girls put in significant amounts of effort and I think it’s really going to pay off.”
What do you think a successful season would look like?
Bulczynski: “A definite goal of ours is to win the Dual County League championship meet again. Placing first in the league for a second year in a row would really show our team’s depth and ability to rebuild. It would also be great for the team to place high at States and All States again.”
What is the biggest difference between being a captain versus being a team member?
Bulczynski: “There’s a lot more responsibility to organize the team, to lead the underclassmen, and to teach new teammates rather than to follow someone else’s lead. It’s a much bigger role to lead the team because we can have a very large influence on how productive practices are, how motivated our teammates are for racing, and how we can do overall as a team this season.”
What advice do you have for new runners heading into the season?
Bulczynski: “That all their hard work during these first few weeks of workouts in the heat will definitely pay off during meets later in the season and to stay positive during the tough training.”
