On Saturday, December 9, the cross country team had the privilege of racing in the Run4Fun Festival at Mt. SAC. The event is put on by the LA 84 Foundation. This is only the second year of the event. This year, the event had multiple teams from Los Angeles County and one school from San Bernardino County. Dartmouth Middle School was very honored to be the only school from all of Riverside county to be invited to the event.
Overall Dartmouth did extremely well. The team qualified for a team place in 4 out of 6 races. The team earned a plaque by placing in the top three in all 4 divisions in which they had a full team; the 6th grade girls earned second place along with the 6th grade boys, and 8th grade girls.
A huge congratulations to the following student-athletes who earned first place in their race; Giulianna Loza placed for 6th-grade girls, Henry Martin for 6th-grade boys, and Christopher Phillips placing for the 6th-grade boys. Christopher also had the fastest time of anyone from the entire day with a time of 6:39 for the 1.25 mile course (with an impressive pace of 5:19 per mile).
The event came to an exciting conclusion as the Dartmouth team had the pleasure of getting a picture with the Olympian Giovanni Lanaro. Giovanni is currently the head women's cross country coach and head men's track and field coach at Mt. SAC. He is also the individual who reached out directly to Dartmouth Middle asking the school to be part of the event.
Story Credit: Tom Siebold