With the Preseason Jamboree out of the way, the time has arrived for the cross-country season to officially begin. On Saturday, the boys’ and girls’ teams will travel to Astronaut High School in Titusville for the 40th Annual Astronaut Rotary Invitational, where the varsity girls’ race will start at 8 a.m., followed by the varsity boys’ race at 8:40 a.m., and closing with the girls’ junior varsity at 9:10 a.m. and the boys’ junior varsity at 9:50 a.m. Senior Sarah Day will be competing as an individual at the Katie Caples Invitational in Jacksonville at 8:05 p.m.

“I’m really excited to see the team places and works together through our pack run strategy in order to get the best results possible,” freshman Liliana Lebau said. “Coordinating outfits for the Jamboree allowed us to bond as a team and I feel like our closeness will work to our advantage when racing. It’s always motivating when you have friends around you in a race, it pushes you to try harder and keep up with them.”

Teams in the local area to as far as Orlando are scheduled to compete in the Invitational for a total of 39 schools.

“Based off the Jamboree, I feel like our varsity boys’ team is looking promising,” junior Ian Chan said. “Each of the top seven varsity runners are no more than a minute apart the preceding runner, which means that we have a good shot at placing well as a team. We have a lot of strong runners as individuals, so if we all just work together and let our determination rub off on each other. I think we will start to see a lot faster times. Unfortunately, not the entire team will be with us on Saturday due to ACT testing. However, it should still make for a good meet.”