The sport of cross country is challenging, however, the objective is simple: run 3.1 miles, or five kilometers, in the fastest time possible. Visual junior Isabella Pezzulo and band senior Brandon LaRosa, both cross country team members, understand and have accomplished that goal. On Oct. 9 at Okeeheelee Park, Pezzulo broke the girls cross country team school record, finishing with a time of 21:20. Less than a month later, on Nov.1, Pezzulo broke the school record once again with a time of 21:12.

“The growth that Isabella demonstrated from last year as a member of the team to this year was phenomenal,” communications teacher and cross country coach Ancil Deluz said. “Not only did she demonstrate tremendous growth [but] she broke the record. She surpassed expectations.”

Pezzulo joined the cross country team at Dreyfoos as a sophomore, and although she had previous running experience, this was her first experience with competitive running. She initially ran to relax mentally, so becoming a competitive runner did not seem like something that Pezzulo thought she would pursue.

“I would do easy jogs after school sometimes. Nothing competitive. I would just run to clear my head and it was more of a mental stress reliever,” Pezzulo said.

Pezzulo’s father had experience as a cross country runner, so she decided to give the sport a try. He not only got her into cross-country, but also continues to push her and motivate her to succeed.

“My dad ran cross country in Connecticut. He was one of the top runners,” Pezzulo said. “I figured it might be some kind of bloodline so I started running cross-country and I was just dropping the time and now he’s giving me advice.”

As co-captain of the girls team, Pezzulo embraces her role as a leader. She understands that by performing to the best of her abilities and pushing herself as hard as she can that her team members will follow suit and work that much harder to improve themselves.

“She always gets everybody motivated and decides what we’re going to do for the day,” strings junior Jenna Meyers-Sinett said. “She just puts all the work in. She gets euphoric when she runs.”

About three weeks later, on Oct. 29 at South County Regional Park, LaRosa followed up Pezzulo’s record-breaking performance with one of his own. He finished with a time of 17:54, the new boys school record, blowing away the previous record of 18:24. LaRosa broke his own record again on Nov. 1 with a time of 17:46. As a senior, high expectations were put on LaRosa coming into the season. When he didn’t break the record in his first two meets, LaRosa decided to push himself harder.

“I was always training and I never usually missed too much time off of running,” LaRosa said. “I wanted to get better. The last week or two I definitely bumped up the training.”

LaRosa did get better, and the training proved to pay off for him as well as for his teammates. As a co-captain on the boys cross country team, he sets a good example in terms of both his leadership and his training methods. He helps decide what type of workouts his team will do at practice and inspires his teammates to reach their personal goals and records.

“We plan what we want to do and what type of workouts and that pushes each other individually,” LaRosa said. “[We push] each other to our common goal because the ultimate competition is yourself.”

The record-breaking performances by Pezzulo and LaRosa are great achievements for both students. They not only broke both the girls and boys school records in the same season, but they did it less than a month apart from one another.

“[A] huge part of [cross country] is personal commitment, personal desire to accomplish certain things,” Dr. Deluz said. “I just think it’s a very rewarding thing for young athletes who work hard to have those kind of results.”