SAN DIEGO — High Tech High School's girls' cross country will compete in the state championship on Saturday in Fresno.
What make it an even cooler accomplishment is the team only has freshmen on it. They are the first all-freshman girls' country team to make it to the state championships in California.
"I gasped," runner Aliya Khalighi said on finding out they made history. "I was super surprised and so ecstatic."
All of this is even crazier considering many on the team didn't even plan on taking cross country seriously going into their freshman year.
"I wanted to do it because I wanted to get ready for soccer which was my main sports," runner Edie Evans said. "But this has taken over as what I like the most now."
Last year, High Tech High was unable to field a deep team. There just wasn't really interest. Then came this year.
There were finally a good amount of runners that tried out. Co-head coaches Mike Strong and Erik Figge felt like they won the lottery.
"I remember on the first day of practice Mike wasn't available to be here and so we had a large amount of freshmen girls try out," Figge said. "I remember relaying the message to him that they were talented. He was like, 'I'm excited we have numbers.' I was like, 'Yes, and they're talented.'"
They started the girls out in freshman events only, but they dominated them. So they moved them up to varsity and they won at the prestigious Mt. SAC Cross Country Invitational.
"We all came and we all knew we were decent runners but we all kept improving as the season went on," Khalighi said. "We ended up becoming one of the best teams in San Diego."
It's not often in sports you find culture, leadership and success with an all-freshman team. These girls want to pay it forward to get even more girls to participate in the future.
"I like being part of forging a path for new, young girls who want to do the sports," runner Reese Gordon said.
"I think it would be cool if we had more people next tear join," runner Jade Gordon said.
For the current roster, they're already talented as just freshmen. They still have their sophomore, junior and senior years to compete with each other.
They believe this is just the beginning.
"Honestly I think we can win every race by the time we get to junior and senior year," Khalighi said. "Even by next year as well."