The 2025 cross country season stands out as one of, if not, the most successful seasons in Stuart Hall cross country history. Over the course of the season, the team saw huge improvements in time across the entire roster. The 2025 team had nine runners under the 17-minute mark — a major milestone at the high school level. This is the most athletes making that mark in the history of the program, expressing the impressive depth of this year’s group.
After a strong regular season filled with consistent success at league meets and invitationals, the team entered November looking strong. The start of the championship season is marked by the BCL West Championship, where the team placed second. The runner-up finish was highlighted with an individual finishing time of 15:59 by senior Julian Anderson (’26), putting him in the top three all-time in the 5K. Two weeks later, at the North Coast Section championship, the Knights raced in less-than-ideal conditions. With rain falling in the days leading up to meet day, conditions made for a slick course. Still, the Knights held strong, finishing in second place, repeating back-to-back second-place finishes at NCS. The depth of this year’s team was on full display that day, as the time spread of the scoring five finishers was only 27 seconds — a remarkably tight gap, making for the smallest time differential of any team that day. At the end of the day, the Knights took home another NCS pennant, now on display in the Dungeon, seven red medals and, most importantly, a ticket to the CIF State Championship, extending Convent and Stuart Hall’s streak of state appearances, which they have held since 2009.
Over Thanksgiving break, the group continued their training, making last touches to the fitness they had been building since July. On the day before state, the team piled into the “Buckley Bus” and made the trip up to Fresno. Upon arrival at Woodward Park, the venue for the meet, it was shoes on and out for a shakeout run to stretch the legs and familiarize themselves with the course. That evening, the team had their traditional Italian dinner, with orders strictly consisting of pasta and carbs in preparation for the race in the morning. The next day, the team headed out to the course to warm up for their race at 12:30 p.m. It was a brisk morning, but the Knights were unfazed by the cold and were each ready to display the product of the thousands of miles of training leading up to the day marked off on everyone’s calendar; Nov. 29. Seven runners, including seniors Julian Anderson, Lachlan Riley and Kyle Lee, were off at the crack of the gun. The group started out conservative, as they have done so throughout the season, crossing the first mile in eighth position, as a team. Then, over the next 2.15 miles, progress was made, moving up steadily and maintaining a trend up in the field. As the Knights crossed the line, live timing revealed that the boys had finished sixth, making this the best placement in the state meet in Stuart Hall history. To go with it, the compiled team time of 1 hour, 22 minutes and 23 seconds is the fastest time in the history of the program and three runners each recorded the third, fourth, and fifth fastest times ran at that course in a Stuart Hall Uniform, including Anderson and Riley.
A school-best sixth-place finish in one of, if not, the most competitive high school cross country states in the nation is a great way to cap off an already amazing season. With so much more to come from this group of runners on the track in the spring, Stuart Hall running has a lot to look forward to in the very near future.