A Division V cross country team had never made it to Nike Cross Nationals (NXN), the unofficial team national championship of high school cross country. That was until the Menlo boys cross country team’s historic performance at the CIF state championship on November 30.
Menlo won the Division V race with a time of 1:16:37, a record for Division V, and four minutes faster than their closest competition. The team finished second among all divisions (divisions are created based on school size, not skill), just seven seconds behind Jesuit High School, punching both teams a ticket to NXN in Portland, Oregon on December 7.
Senior Landon Pretre, who missed out on the state meet last season due to an injury, reflected on his nerves before the meet. “Pre-race, I was pretty nervous,” Pretre said. “It was probably the most nervous I’ve been for a race in a while, just thinking about how this is potentially my last high school cross country race and my last shot to make NXN. It’s something that I’ve dreamed of doing all four years.”
Pretre led the team with a time of 14:38.8, second both overall and in Division V. Senior Will Hauser finished fourth, sophomore Henry Hauser eighth, senior Jared Saal eleventh and freshman Oliver Obelkson nineteenth.“Everyone executed at the state meet,” Saal, a captain on the team, said. “We really couldn’t have asked for more from any runner.”
The girls team — led by senior captain Veronica Taira in ninth place — placed seventh in the Division V race, the best finish for the team in the past five years. In 2021 and 2023, the girls team did not qualify for the state meet due to their struggles to fill a healthy varsity squad.
For Taira, the top 10 finish was rewarding considering she fell at the Central Coast Section finals last year and did not qualify for the state meet individually as she hoped for. “It was a really great end to the season for me personally,” Taira said. “I know some of us didn’t perform as well as we wanted to, but I think it was a good culminating race for us.”
The boys team placed 15th in a wet and muddy race at NXN, out of the 22 best high school cross country teams in the nation. Pretre led the way for the Knights as usual with a time of 16:22.0, good for 62nd place.
