The athletes stand ready to start as soon as they hear the pistol. All lined up eager to start the race. Stomachs turning into knots, adrenaline coursing through their veins. As they run up and down hills, everyone begins to spread out. The faster near the front and the slower near the end, hoping that another personal best is waiting for them at the end.

Cross-country has been viewed as a smaller side among the other sports that are offered at Bellevue East (football, softball, volleyball, etc). This has seemed to be the case in the past few years or so.

“The challenge we have as a program is really the size of our program,” cross-country head coach Connor Mazzei said. 

Besides having a small team, there is a lack of girls participating. This has been the trend for the past ten years.

“Especially in schools where both genders are represented, typically there are more boys running cross-country than the girls for their teams and programs,” Mazzei said.

The lack of female representation in cross-country could be attributed to multiple factors. One big factor could be the time the cross-country season takes place at Bellevue East- it takes place at the same time as other sports like volleyball and softball.

“There is a bit of [a challenge for] cross- country being in the fall,” Mazzei said. “We see a lot of our volleyball players and softball players on our track team. I think that’s one of the challenges that we really think of when we do conflict with sports.”

Though smaller teams do pose some challenges, there are still some positives that come with being a part of one. For freshman Hannah Kinsey, being a smaller team has proven helpful.

“Cross-country is a large sport but there’s not that many people on a team, it’s kind of nice to have a close group of friends,” Kinsey said. “I just enjoy running and [it is] a close group of people you get to know for all four years. I’ve always enjoyed the friends and stuff.”

Even though the team still seems small, Cross-country had four girls last year and now having nine girls on this years team. With having more girls, the girls on the team have more people to train with to make each other better athletes.

“Everyone is super nice, everyone always cheers each other on, it’s super fun and a good environment,” junior Kira Mabry said. “It’s a lot easier to push yourself and have more people to compare yourself [to]. It seems bad but it helps a lot when running because you can run ‘X’ amount of races and push yourself past them.”

Having more girls part of the team does not just affect the athletes individually. More girls can help with the morale of the team when they compete in competitions.

“The benefit of having girls on a cross-country team is because there’s differences between boys and girls in terms of the way they race, the times, and the expectations,” Mazzei said. “Having more girls on a cross -country team helps create a culture of belonging for the girls. It establishes sportsmanship, which would be lacking if there were fewer girls on our team.”