PHOENIX – For the Mustangs' cross country team, fundraising isn’t optional.

It's necessary.

They don’t get the fancy equipment that the football team does, and they certainly don’t get the fame and attention that the football team does.

They should, though.

The Mustangs football team is currently 2-7, whereas the girl's cross country team had four runners finish in the Top 10 of the PXU Cross Country Championship on Oct. 20, which consisted of 10 schools in the PXU district. The team’s fifth runner, Sarah Ramos-Gonzalez, is North’s class of 2023 valedictorian.

Yet, the Mustangs cross country teams don't get nearly the attention or funding that the football team does. Because of this, both the boys and girls cross country teams at North have turned to selling chocolate as a means of raising money.

Ramos-Gonzalez, who is one of the captains on the Mustangs, came up with the idea to sell the confectious candy.

“I knew when we started this season that our account did not have enough money and so it was my idea to start selling chocolate,” Ramos-Gonzalez said.

The idea became an instant success throughout the hallways at North, as the girls sold 40 pieces of chocolate in the first two days of the sale.

Sophomore Karla Quintero leads the team in chocolate sales with 12 boxes sold, which certainly gets the approval of her senior captains Ramos-Gonzalez and Briseida Villasenor.

“It’s definitely doing well,” Villasenor said. “We have some entrepreneurs on our team because our girls are really social and they like putting themselves out there.”

Villasenor added that “everyone wants to eat because they’re in high school,” which makes selling the chocolate quite easy.

Although the girls team has run laps around the boys in their abilities to sell chocolates, the boys team still does enjoy selling them and take pride in raising funds for their team.

Luis Gastelum, who is a junior and the team’s fifth runner, said that selling them is all about strategy.

“It’s not hard to sell them if you know how to sell to the people,” Gastelum said.

Gastelum also claimed that telling the customers the profits go to their cross country team has turned students on the fence about buying them into making the purchase, and that students who were only going to buy one piece have been persuaded to buy multiple.

Despite Gastelum’s efforts at increasing chocolate sales, the girls team has still quintupled the boys team in transactions, according to boy's head coach Phil Kohm.

“They’ve outsold us probably 5-to-1 as a team…they’re good -- we’re not,” Kohm said.

Although there is no denying the girls team’s dominance of selling chocolates in comparison to the boys, Kohm said that he was happy with his team’s results considering it was their first year selling chocolates to the school as a way to fundraise.

Once the fundraiser is over, the Mustangs hope to subsidize either an end-of-season banquet dinner or team merchandise, which is something a cross country team at North would not be used to.

“We’re hopefully going to get supplies for us…maybe sweaters and shirts and duffle bags,” Villasenor said. “We can just use it and remember this year.”