On Saturday, September 26th, the Paint Branch Cross Country Team ran a meet at Kenilworth Park. The meet was called DCXC (Washington DC Cross Country) Invitational and was hosted by Pacers. The team decided to run this race because senior runner Beth Taye was named to the preseason All-Run Washington Team in the summer. Taye received spikes due to this and wore them on Saturday. Paint Branch saw many familiar opponents on Saturday, including Churchill, Walter Johnson, Whitman, Wootton, Sherwood, and Poolesville. Paint Branch was looking to run better than what their 0-2 record said, and prove that they are a force to be reckoned with.

According to Coach Anderson, “[This meet] serves more as a barometer to see where we’re at. For Paint Branch, the person to watch is Bethlehem Taye.” At about 1:30p.m., the team arrived at Kenilworth Park and set up camp. Many runners complained that there was no tarp for them to sit on, two backpacks were given to Paint Branch by Pacers, each one determined by Coach Anderson to go to the top performances on the day. After about thirty minutes of resting, former Paint Branch runner, Ryun Anderson shared strategic spots in the course. Then one-by-one, the runners began to warm up at intervals based on what time they raced at. The warm-up consisted of a ten to fifteen minute jog, stretches, and drills. Each runner had to get to the starting line fifteen minutes before the race.

The races were split up by grade and gender. First the freshmen girls, then the freshmen boys, next the sophomore girls, then so on. Rose Leager, who ran in the freshman girls race started the day off strong. She ran a time of 23:32 and came in 37th place. Other notable performances included freshman Vinny Maltagliati,  sophomore Yasmine Kass, sophomore Tyler Plunkett, junior Kyra Badrian, and seniors Beth Taye, Jacob Bhatti, and Travis Armbruster. The top twenty five finishers in every race were awarded a medal. Taye received a medal for coming in 6th place in the senior race. Plunkett ran the fastest time for Paint Branch (17:54) and received a medal for coming in 20th place. Yasmine Kass received a medal and came in 17th place. At the end of the day, senior Jacob Bhatti and junior Kyra Badrian were awarded the backpacks due to their excellent performances. Combining all of the races together, the Panthers came in 28th place out of 41 teams.

Senior runner Yoseph Gebru, who ran a time of 18:26 on Saturday said, “My strategy going into the race was to keep it calm and controlled… I didn’t execute the plan as well as I wanted to.” Gebru, one of the leaders on the team, will look to bounce back on Tuesday, as the team travels to Wootton for a divisional meet against the Patriots.