What Makes a Great Cross Country Team?

There is no single blueprint for building a great cross country team. Some of Maryland's most successful programs have rosters filled with experienced runners, while others rely on athletes who discovered the sport only this year. Some have decades of championship tradition behind them, while others are building something entirely new, now. Their coaches have different training philosophies, different backgrounds and different ideas about what a successful season looks like, but after talking with coaches and athletes from many of Maryland's top programs ahead of the 2026 season, the similarities became increasingly clear.

When asked about what makes their programs successful, they rarely started with mileage, workouts or race strategy. Instead, they talked about culture. They talked about consistency, selflessness, belonging and having fun. Most of all, they talked about building something bigger than any one runner, race or season.

So, we asked the question: what actually makes a great cross country team? 

1. Culture Before Winning

Bethesda-Chevy Chase head coach Gil Kirk may have summarized it best. "Positive culture leads to love for the sport, which leads to success," Kirk said.

Coming off back-to-back state championships, B-CC certainly knows something about success, but when Kirk talks about what he hopes his athletes remember from their time in the program, championships aren't the first thing he mentions. He hopes they remember their teammates, traditions and the enjoyment they had coming to practice every day.

At Calvert Hall, Scott Baker’s philosophy is similarly straightforward: “Be good teammates and win championships… The focus is on the order of that sentence," Coach Baker explained. "If you focus on being a good person, good stuff follows."

Across many of Maryland's top programs, there's a belief culture helps create competitive success.

Liberty coach Ryan Rose describes his program as athlete-driven. "They want to work hard, so we work hard," Rose said. "They want to have fun, so we have fun."

At Hereford, Adam Hittner has won seven girls cross country state championships in nine state meets, but his belief is “the team is bigger than any one person or any one race or any one year," Hittner said.

The programs may describe it differently, but the message at its core is the same: winning matters, but it never matters most.

2. Great Teams Run for Each Other

To an outsider, cross country may look like an individual sport, but ask any successful program about their best teams, and they repeatedly describe athletes who run for each other rather than themselves. 

"The grind of training is easier to manage when you are doing it for each other," Severna Park coach Josh Alcombright said. His four-time defending 3A state champion girls program emphasizes a simple philosophy: "We > Me."

Hereford captain Charlie Brill sees the same principle within her team. "Our success comes from how well we race as a team, not just individually," Brill said. "Everyone works hard to see the success of the team as a whole."

That mentality was at the center of Urbana's first boys state championship in 22 years last fall. "All seven of our guys ran for each other that day and held the rope to the very end," Urbana coach Jacqueline Suarez said. For Urbana, "holding the rope" means refusing to let go of the teammates depending on you, even when a race becomes difficult. It became particularly literal at the 2025 state championship. Sitting third at the two-mile mark, the Hawks surged through the final mile to capture the 4A title.

Fast individuals may make a fast cross country team, but to be a great team those individuals must do it together.

3. There Is No Magic Workout

Championships happen on memorable Saturdays in November, but championship teams are built on countless ordinary days.

Centennial head coach Kevin McCoy makes no mystery of his program's philosophy. "There is no special or particular workout where we knew that we were special," McCoy said of the Eagles' 2025 3A championship team. "It is the routine, predictable work that we do every day that makes us special." At Centennial, routine is the foundation. Show up. Put your head down. Do quality work. Come back and do it again.

River Hill head coach Chad Boothe approaches that consistency through athlete accountability. "We try to instill in our runners that they are accountable for their own success," Boothe said. His coaches explain the purpose of a workout, the pace, effort or physiological goal, but ultimately, the athlete has to execute it.

Coach Baker at Calvert Hall hopes his athletes leave the program understanding a similar lesson: work hard at something, stay committed to it and the odds of accomplishing it become much greater.

Even programs with very different training philosophies seem to agree on this much: there is no workout in October that can replace months of work that didn't happen in June, July and August.

The big moments may be what everyone remembers. The ordinary days are what make them possible.

4. Depth Is About More Than a Fifth Runner

Every cross country coach understands the importance of a fifth scorer, but the strongest programs describe depth as something much bigger.

Severna Park's depth, for example, allows athletes to race more freely. If one runner isn't at her best on a particular day, she knows someone is ready to step forward. Coach Josh Alcombright believes that kind of depth creates healthy competition while also allowing his athletes to race more selflessly, knowing a teammate is there to pick up the slack.

River Hill captain Jayden Brown believes his program's JV success has helped create the pipeline necessary to reload after graduating the top three runners from last year's 2A championship lineup.

Smithsburg's upperclassmen have made developing younger athletes an explicit goal. "I don't want the Smithsburg boys program to die after our class of seniors leave," captain Dylan Herbst said.

And at B-CC, Kirk says the responsibility falls on more than the team's established seniors. "We need all of our juniors and sophomores to step up and help the seniors lead the team both in races and in building culture."

In its strongest form, depth is not just about the fifth runner, but about developing the next teammate who sets the standard at practice. The next athlete who welcomes a new freshman. The next person who holds someone accountable. The next captain who leaves their legacy.

5. People Have to Want to Come to Practice

For programs that take competition very seriously, Maryland's best teams spend a surprising amount of time talking about fun. 

Hittner thinks an outsider attending a Hereford practice might actually be surprised by "just how unserious we are at times… We have a lot of fun at practice, we laugh and make jokes and the athletes give me a hard time, and then it's time to put in the work."

B-CC has Blue vs. Gold competitions, team outings and traditions that Kirk says bring him as much joy as the racing itself. His description of the team's culture requires only nine words: "We love the sport and we love each other."

Liberty's athletes repeatedly returned to the same idea. "You are going to have good races and bad races, good days and bad days at practice," Kayley Cole said. "But just remember the fun times that make you do this sport, like the pasta parties or the bus rides, and remember you always have the team beside you."

At Calvert Hall, one athlete described newcomers quickly discovering how "goofy" the team can be along with how quickly everyone can flip the switch when it's time to work.

High school runners spend hundreds of hours and thousands of miles together over four years. The workouts can be difficult. The races hurt. There will be injuries, disappointing performances and days when motivation disappears, but enjoying the people beside you gives athletes a reason to come back tomorrow.

6. Everyone Has to Believe They Matter

Only seven runners line up for a varsity team at the state championship. A successful cross country program can have dozens more athletes who never appear in that starting box. That creates another challenge: making sure greatness isn't reserved only for the fastest runners.

Urbana girls coach CJ Ecalono believes athletes need to know “they belong, that they matter,” while still understanding that opportunities have to be earned. “There is always someone pushing to get better and competing for an opportunity,” Ecalono said. “That creates a culture where our student-athletes understand that wearing the uniform is a privilege.”

"Everyone has a chance to grow no matter how slow or fast you are," Urbana senior captain Evan Madraymootoo said. "Not backing down from obstacles is what makes a great cross country runner."

At Liberty, senior Sarah Bergeron describes the ideal team as one capable of balancing accountability with support. "A team that can hold its members accountable while also being supportive is the very thing that changes both individual performance and overall experience," she said.

Severna Park senior Caroline Stead takes that responsibility beyond running performances. One of her goals is to make sure teammates feel comfortable discussing issues female endurance athletes face, including fueling and self-image, and to create an environment where those conversations are normalized and supported.

Calvert Hall's athletes similarly identified a goal that has nothing to do with winning a race: making sure everyone feels part of the team while helping each runner reach their potential.

The fastest athlete and the newest runner may finish minutes apart on race day, but they ride the same bus home. They suffer through the same summer heat. They celebrate the same teammates. Great programs find ways to convince both that what they contribute matters.

7. The Best Teams Think in Generations

Eventually, every great high school runner graduates. That's why perhaps the clearest commonality among Maryland's successful programs is that they aren't only trying to build this year's team. They're building the next one. And the one after that.

For Urbana girls coach CJ Ecalono, what gets passed down extends beyond running. “I hope every athlete leaves our program understanding that who they become matters more than what they accomplish,” he said. “The wins, records, and awards are meaningful, but the discipline, resilience, accountability, and relationships they develop will carry them much further.”

For Urbana boys, the idea is described as "planting seeds in a garden they would never get to see." The 2025 championship provided a fitting example. Joshua Rothery and Korey Kauflin were freshmen on an Urbana team that failed to qualify for States in 2022. Three years later, they were seniors leading the Hawks to a state championship. This year, Urbana's senior captains have identified "creating a legacy" as a goal that goes beyond winning races.

At Centennial, the mission is to teach the next generation to do exactly what the runners before them did: "show up, run hard, and do it for the team."

At Smithsburg, where last year's team ended a 47-year state championship drought, coach Adam Rudy hopes the next generation becomes a “team of believers." A team of athletes who believe in themselves, each other, their training and their ability to accomplish great things. The team's seniors have taken that responsibility seriously, intentionally developing younger runners who can eventually do the same for the athletes who follow them.

And at Hereford, Brill summarized the responsibility in a sentence: "Our biggest goal beyond winning races is to leave the team better than we found it."

That's the cycle successful programs are trying to create. Athletes arrive, older runners show them what the program means, eventually they become the older runners, and then they teach someone else. Teams become truly great when that cycle becomes the fabric of who they are. 

So, What Makes a Great Cross Country Team?

Ask some of Maryland's most successful cross country programs what makes them great, and you will find that although their traditions, training and personalities differ, the same themes appear again and again:

• Showing up every day

• Believing

• Laughing

• Holding yourself and your teammates accountable

• Running for something bigger than yourself

• Teaching freshmen what it means to wear the uniform and that every who wears it matters

• And maybe most importantly, leaving the team better for athletes who come next

Sure, the trophies and the titles matter. Every program featured here wants to win, and their championship records make that clear, but perhaps the reason these programs keep winning is that winning isn't the only thing they're building.

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