Editor’s Note: The women’s cross country team went on to earn first place with 39 team points at the Irvine Regional Park on Friday, Oct. 10.

Original story is as follows:

The women’s cross country team has a meet on Friday, Oct. 10, at Irvine Regional Park and have great amounts of confidence to go out there and race.

Stephanie Ruiz, one of the star performers, stated, “In high school, I ran this race in Orange County Championships in cross country when I attended Western High School, [so] I’m pretty comfortable; excited to see if they (the hosts) changed the course or not. I’m prepared and excited at the same time.”

Ariel Melendez, another star performer on the team, stated, “I feel really confident and that the team will do really well since we have new competition and some new people that we haven’t seen race yet. I have confidence that our team can get first.”

Not only do the women have great confidence in themselves, but the coach had a few positive words to say.

Coach Brian Ramos said, “We are prepared for this race. On the women’s side, we are looking to win this meet, we have been carrying our momentum throughout the season.”

But how did they make it to where they are?

“This is our last meet before conference, so this meet will prepare us for that and for regionals. We have definitely been working on pack running, and for the main goal for the women we have a really strong one through four, and for our fifth runner, we have five girls that can be our fifth,” Ramos continued.

Ruiz said, “In practice, we always run as a team, no one gets left behind. We are just comfortable seeing each other race. It’s not surprising to see each other during the race, whether we are in front of each other or behind each other, we know that we are pushing each other. I think we are comfortable for tomorrow’s race.”