Mountain biking on campus
Mountain bike club has been on this campus for over 5 years, only becoming more intense for participants as the years go on. It’s a club you will only find if you look for, despite how long they have been around.
The club was originally started by Mr. Serrano with the sponsor later becoming Ms. Murrish. Along with coaching the club, Murrish also teaches dance, PE, and is the head coach of our schools dive team. As an avid health and fitness enthusiast, mountain biking is right up her alley.
They practice together, race together and win together, but are labeled a “club” rather than a “sports team”. They compete as other sports do with teams JV 1, JV 2 and varsity with races almost every other weekend, ending up with about 5 per season. Their season starts at the beginning of September and ends near the start of November. Their season wrapped up on November 3 at White Tank Mountain Regional Park. Their best team placement of the season was 14th and the best individually placed rider was senior and returning member, Andres Ramirez in 3rd at their final race.
There are 15 current members of mountain bike club, 14 of those boys. But despite the lack of gender diversity in the group, senior Mason Rowlett describes, Rowlett has been on the club since junior year but says it all started with his father years ago, “It started with my dad introducing [mountain biking] to me, and ever since then, I haven’t stopped and I love it.”
As mentioned before, there is a huge lack in gender diversity within the group, and there always has been. The club did not have any female members until last year with only two. Now, there is only one girl amongst 14 teenage boys. That girl is Lindsey Harrison, a sophomore who just completed her second year on the team. The team hopes that in the coming years, more girls will join the team and build the strength they have altogether, but it’s difficult when very few people on campus know about it. They may be a small group of kids apart of a sports club that isn’t recognized as a sport on campus like soccer or football, etc.,but they are very dedicated to their riding and don’t let the popularity the club doesn’t have get in the way of what they do.
Sabrina Digne is a senior attending Perry High School. She is a third year newspaper student and is the sports editor as well as a reporter for pom/cheer...
