Rex Foster, commander of NJROTC, played an important part of the Independence High School Cross Country team through the 2023-2024 season where the team qualified for state. He considers that the highlight of the season where he took a complete boys team to state. He stated that “Independence has not been able to do that ever since 2015, so it was nice watching the boys team react to learning that they qualified to run at the state meet.”
Foster had felt it was easy to bond with his kids because the cross-country team is small and that they are all good kids. He forms team building events so “the athletes tend to be closer than other sports.” Foster enjoys watching the boys improve greatly from their last season. He hopes that they will continue to pursue cross country in the later years.
One team member who contributed greatly to the team’s success was Senior Britanny Noriega. Many people on the team claim Noriega as “team captain”, because she played the most important role and guided the team. “It was never an assigned role or anything. It sort of just happened that way.” Despite these facts, the stress coming with that role did not have much effect on her health or school, and if she did ever feel that way, she would not want to “overshadow the care she had for them.” Her teammates were considered part of her family as she would take care of them like her own siblings. At the end of the season, the final practices they had, they ran to Dairy Queen on N 95th Ave, Glendale in the Westgate district.
Noriega has wanted to do cross country ever since she was growing up, but she never had the chance to until her start of highschool. It wasn’t easy to stay motivated, but she wanted to finish off her senior year strong.
According to Sophomore Lizette Aguilar, she joined cross country her Freshman year because of her dad. “The summer before my freshman year I went running with my dad and he told me to do cross country because he believed I would do good and like the sport,” and Aguilar in fact did. However with a lot of graduating seniors this year, Aguilar met many people who supported her these past two years. One of her favorite moments was with Britanny. She had been with Aguilar since her first year in high school, lifting her up when she felt like giving up. She was taught to be more confident in her running. She intends to work hard to improve, and said, “I hope to be like her one day as the best runner that she is”.
Senior Oscar Ibarra, a runner on the JV team, cross country became a huge part of his life. He had not planned to join at all until last year, Junior year. Ibarra mentioned “he needed something to do” and decided to try out. Although he had not spent much time practicing due to “working a lot during the season,” he wished he had more time to. With the little time he had, he spent working hard and preparing for the meets.
Ibarra definitely plans on pursuing cross country as he gained a scholarship from college. Coming along with that is the pressure of being a student athlete and focusing on school during the season while having meets throughout the week. He explains that “not a lot of pressure comes from it since I did it last year so I’m used to it”. Despite these challenges, he has had many memories with his team. One being dressing up with the theme “Beach wear” for their last home meet. Alongside that, for this cross country season was being able to run for state as well as making friends who supported him.
Their dedication fulfilled this season with lots of great moments while showing major improvements from last season. They will be running for an even better season next year.
