With three state qualifiers, head coach Chris Coleman’s cross country runners are certainly “exceeding expectations.” After their Central Coast Section (CCS) championship on Saturday, Nov. 15, seniors Ryan Liu and co-captain Stella Newman and junior Elizabeth Carroll all qualified to race at the state meet in two weeks.

For the CCS championship at Hallmark Park, boys’ and girls’ varsity each select seven runners to compete. The boys’ team finished in ninth place, while the girls placed third overall as a team.

“Overall, great weather conditions, tough competition, as it always is, in CCS, and we actually had some very good results, and very happy with what we did today and how people ran,” Coleman said.

Liu, who finished in 13th place with a time of 16:25.7, is the first runner from the boys’ team to qualify for California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) state playoffs in seven years.

“It makes me feel good. I ran with the kid who made state in 2018, so it’s nice to kind of just see myself compared to him, and see where he was,” Liu said. “I think it’s nice that Burlingame has more representation for the boys’ side now. Our girls’ team won CCS [in 2023], and they made it to state. So I think it’s nice to see some guys go [to state]. And hopefully in the future years, we have a lot of strong underclassmen that could go too.”

Boys’ varsity also had another standout performance from sophomore Sam Mullen-Weaver, who finished 23rd with a time of 16:45.3.

“We’re an underclassman strong team, but I think we did really good, considering it, and it’s the first time the boys had a team at CCS in a while, so it was nice to see familiar faces at the starting line,” Liu said.

By finishing third at CCS, the girls’ varsity barely missed the mark to qualify as a team for the state competition. The team consisted of seniors Newman and Maddie Enriquez, Caroll, sophomores Amelia Reeth and Kaylin Darrow, and freshman Claire Hwang.

“You always hope to get as many people through, either as a team or individually. We were able to get three individuals and almost five individuals through to go to the state meet,” Coleman said. “Our girls’ team almost made it, which is a great result anytime you’re at this level of competition.”

Though the meet was an overall success for the team, Newman said her breathing issues, which have affected her performance throughout the season, once again plagued her during the meet on Saturday.

“A similar sort of reaction has kind of happened at the end of every single race this season, but getting progressively worse and worse, and we’re not really sure what’s happening. I’m going to figure it out, hopefully in the off season​​” Newman said. “… I just cross the line, and obviously, it’s due to exhaustion, but it’s the moment that I stop everything, just kind of goes black, and I fall over, and then nothing works.”

Despite her difficulties, Newman has performed strongly this season, posting a personal record with a time of 18:22.9.

The remaining runners will travel to Clovis to compete in the CIF State competition on Nov. 29.

“It’s nice because we get two full weeks in between. It’s equally, if not more important right now, that we recover well, in addition to training well to make sure we’re ready to race in two weeks and feeling fresh,” Newman said.

As the trio regroups for the state competition, Newman said she is bittersweet that her final cross country season is ending.

“It’s very bittersweet. But I’m very happy to get the win finally. I was second as a freshman, third as a sophomore, and second as a junior,” Newman said. “I feel it’s been kind of a long time coming, a lot of short of winning. So that was exciting.”