2023 D3 XC Championship Files: Lucas Florsheim and Derek Fearon
“And to think, not what if it goes wrong, what if it goes really well, it's just super empowering.”
What a weekend for D3 Cross Country. We begin telling the stories of the weekend with Lucas Florsheim and Derek Fearon. They're fresh off a team title after coming into the championship ranked 8th.
They touch on the highs of winning in 2021 and the lows of finishing 5th in 2022.
This duo brings great perspective and thoughtful answers on their time at Pomona, the culture they built, and what helped them remain relaxed heading into the national meet.
Lucas finished 9th and Derek finished 10th to become three time All-Americans.
While their time may be done running XC for Pomona, we should see them next year in a different uniform.
Quotes:
There's a picture of us running on the warm up and we're all just smiling and laughing. You would think it was from the cool down. You would think it was from like that joy of winning, but it's not. It's from the joy of of being there on the day and getting ready to compete.”
Photo Credit: Jen Regan
“I think there was a big moment where we sat down as a group and we said, look, the bad news is, is there's seven really good teams right now in the country. And the good news is, is that we're definitely one of them. And we have a real shot at this thing.”
“I knew that if we could only have that energy that we've built and continue to build off of former teams, that support system, that love, that gratitude, it would be really hard to beat us.”
“You don't know how good it feels to be that team from California, that's in Pennsylvania and you see your buddies from back home out there. You get this grin on your face when you see them”
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