November 19, Hart’s cross country team ran in the CIF Division II race at Mt. SAC and placed ninth in the race. The team was led by Mangione who was in 17th place and Ahten in 28th place. That race allowed Mangione to run in the State CIF Division II cross country meet on the 26th of November, where he came in 57th place on a 5k course in 16:12.4 minutes. The team did not place in the State CIF.

Hart Cross Country started off the 2022 season winning, with top performers Owen Ahten, Paul Mangione and Nathaniel Branda propelling the team forward. Ahten, Mangione and Branda all had strong season last year and are ready to continue to build off their performances.  “I’m definitely going to do track next spring and I’ll see where it goes from there.” said Mangione. Hart Cross Country coach Darren James remains confident about the future of the team.

 “The guys have generated amazing growth for the past several years. New guys coming in are running faster than the preceding class. The current environment will continue to drive growth for many years to come” said James. 

Coach James has also reflected on past failures of the team, emphasizing the team’s ability to grow from mistakes.

“There are always things to improve upon. We’ve got to get seven guys fit enough and recovered enough to all perform at a very high level on the same day. So many things, both at practice and in our day to day lives, go into that. The most important thing is that we continue to show up, every day, and focus on the process. If we do that for hundreds of days in a row, we’ll be successful.” said James