The Revere High School Mens’ cross country team welcomed a new head coach this year as they worked to improve their individual running peformances.

Mens’ Cross Country head coach Mark Purdy mentioned the expectations for the team this season.

“The biggest goals are to show improvement as a team and as individual runners over the course of the year and to have fun doing it. More specifically, we want to finish higher in our meets than last year,” Purdy said.

Junior runner David De Leon elaborated upon coach Purdy’s statement about team expectations.

“We could win the whole entire league this year and win it again next year,” De Leon said.

Junior runner Joel Niemi discussed how the new division could affect the team this year.

“We are in the new American Division [of the Suburban League] and we are now with smaller schools so we have a much better chance of doing better in league play without worrying about the bigger schools that outnumber us,” Niemi said.

Purdy also described the strategies used in cross country.

“In races, runners must know their capability and set their pace accordingly in order to achieve optimal results. If [you run] too slow initially, you cannot make up the time later. If [you run] too fast, you may fade badly toward the end.  Runners can also employ tactics such as when in a race to make a surge to separate from opposing runners,” Purdy said.

Niemi explained that Purdy is transitioning into his position by utilizing similar techniques to the previous head coach.

“This is the first time that [Mark] Purdy has coached us so he talked to [previous head coach David] Parry and wanted to incorporate many of the styles that Parry had used,” Niemi said.

Junior runner Akos Jasper spoke of the team’s training regime.

“[Our warm-up consists of an] 800 meter warm up, dynamic stretches, leg swings, ankle stretches, and depending on the day, a run. Mondays are long runs, Tuesdays and Thursdays are hard runs, and Wednesday and Fridays are lighter runs,” Jasper said.

Jasper discussed the mindset of the runners on the team.

“Cross Country is not only a physically intense sport, but also mentally intense. Running fast is one thing, but wanting to beat the person who is running in front of you and pushing yourself to do it is another,” Jasper said.

The team’s seniors include Steven Homolak, Kevin Luo, Scott Marble, Mark Oleson, Ben Spann and Quintin Vosper. The team finished strong in Suburban League play.