While students leave school for Thanksgiving break, the girls’ cross country team will leave for state.

The Lady Raiders will compete Nov. 21 in Round Rock, near Austin. 

After last year’s 10th place finish, the team along with their coach, Rebekah James, are looking to claim gold. 

“(Finishing) in 10th place last year was difficult,” sophomore Lizzy Chen said. “Most of our good girls were out. Grapevine and Colleyville are our biggest competitors. Their strengths are just pushing through the pain and going fast, so we’re going to get on their tail and stay with them the whole race to beat them at the end.”

Chen said the Raider team will rely on their biggest strength to win- their ability to run like state champions, but in order to do so, they will have to overcome their biggest weakness which is their tendency to not perform as well as they do in practice.

“Our strength is our work ethnic,” James said. “(The team) works hard all the time, but performing at big meets just gives them stage fright because they’re so young.”

The Raider team is comprised of freshman through juniors, but many are key returners such as Ariyah Gomez and Romie Rubio. Some newcomers are freshman Aubrie Garza and Hailey Roberson.

“I’m hoping to win as a team and get closer to my teammates because we will all be bonding together at the state meet,” Gomez said. “Grapevine and Colleyville are the ones that we’re worried about, but we just have to stay close and we will beat them.”

The state course will present a challenge of its own. Sophomore Ashley Norman said the terrain includes hills and bridges, but in the end the team will just have to give it their all. Chen agrees.

“I’m looking forward to going against the teams that have been training as hard as we have all year and seeing how good we do,” Chen said.  “There’s a lot of girls, over 200, and the course is really fast. We will have to push through all the pain and forget about it.”