It was a good summer for the South Whidbey girls cross country team.

Years of good intentions and promises to coaches finally came true with this team, the state’s second best in the 2A division last year. Keen to go one place better in Pasco come November, they did what any future championship runners must do with a summer vacation: They trained, trained, trained.

“This is the hardest working group I’ve had summer training-wise in 14 years,” said the team’s head coach, Doug Fulton.

Fulton was speaking about both his girls and boys teams, but it’s hard to deny — while watching them put on the first of their preseason miles — that the 20-member girls team has the edge in group dedication. Already, they are running liked the defending North Cascades Conference and Northwest District champions they are, and as a team intent on taking home the state trophy after years of near misses.

Junior Nancy Godsey, who has been part of the team’s varsity lineup since coming out as a freshman in 2001, knows why she has been taking time out of her summer fun almost every day for the past few months to run. She wants to win.

“Since we got second at state last year, we had more motivation,” she said.

Being even more direct, senior Callie Supsinskas — who is back running after losing the entire track season to an injury — is leaving no doubt this season about what she wants out of her last high school cross country race two months from now.

“We just wanted first this time,” she said.

If that’s what they want, there is a good chance that they will get it. The 2003 Falcons come back with almost the same lineup they had last year; only graduate and state placer Julie Gabelein is missing. Likely to run at the front this season, in addition to Supsinskas and Godsey, are Mary Bakeman — who placed eighth as a freshman at the state meet last year — and junior Becky Gabelein. Also in the mix is senior Emily Felt — who returns to the team after spending last year in Finland — freshman Katy Gordon and sophomore Britta Madison.

But to be the best, the Falcons are going to have to beat the best. The girls 2A field is unusually strong this season. NCC rival Mount Baker comes back this year with two runners Coach Fulton believes to be the best in the state. At the same time, state champion East Valley Yakima and Chelan come back slightly depleted by graduation, but strong enough to vie for the title.

What this means for the South Whidbey girls is that they must be consistent and, as they have done during the past four years, they must run as a pack. Still without a runaway team leader, the Falcons all ran last year’s 3.1-mile standard distance within two minutes of one another, with the fastest crossing the finish line in about 20 minutes even, and the last varsity runner finishing in about 21:40.

Who will lead this year is unimportant to the team, just as long as everyone can follow close and stay near the front of the pack.

The season’s meet schedule will challenge the team, sending the girls to big invites at Capital High School, Hoquiam and Yakima’s Sunfair. On top of that, they will travel with the boys team to Oahu, Hawaii to compete in the Iolani Invitational on Sept. 20. That trip has had the team not only training hard this summer, but working hard to raise money for plane tickets.

The season gets a quiet start on Thursday when the team travels to Lakewood High School for an NCC jamboree meet.