Diego Villamarin’s family came to the United States seeking a better way of life.

Originally, the St. Dominic Academy junior is from Arequipa, Peru, which is the second largest city in Peru with a population of 861,144. He moved to America when he was six with his family where they settled first in Pennsylvania before his father found a better job in Maine as a doctor. After a strong first season last year as a sophomore, he has become the Saints’ top boys’ cross country runner this year.

“The school system is shaped a lot better over here,” Diego Villamarin said of the move to the U.S. “The education wasn’t specified for the student. I liked the education a lot better. And also here, there are a lot more opportunities. Over there, doctors weren’t paid as much and my dad got a better opportunity for better a job.”

Growing up in Peru he played soccer like the other kids, but asthma became an issue.

“Originally my parents thought it would be a good idea to play soccer since almost everybody there plays,” Villamarin said. “But that didn’t workout to well. My dad has asthma and he passed it along to me.”

When he moved to the United States, he got treatment that allowed him to play sports.

After picking up cross country in junior high, he took his freshman year off from sports to focus on academics.

“Early on in the year, I wasn’t really into my academics, too,” Villamarin said. “As the year progressed, I got a lot better. Honestly, I regret not doing sports my freshman year. I feel like I could move a lot quicker and do a lot better for my junior season

St. Dom’s head coach Marc Lepage, who also is a junior high social studies teacher at St. Dom’s, said Villamarin has excelled in the classroom.

“Diego is a great kid,” Lepage said. “He didn’t run cross country as a freshman to focus on his academics. Now I would say he’s one of the smartest kids in his class and now he has taken on cross country also. Last year he was the third or fourth runner on the team, and this year over the summer he put it into his mind that he would be a leader on the team.”

Some of the training he did over the summer included running one to two miles a day to running five or six and getting his weekly total up to 40 miles.

Villamarin has already had a successful season this year as he came in first place in meet at Telstar on Sept. 10. This past Wednesday he was the Saints’ top runner at the meet in Boothbay as he came in ninth place where he set a new personal record with a time of 19:21.

Even with the new personal record, Villamarin said there’s things he can work on. He meets with last year’s coach Keith Weatherbie, who teaches science at the school, before every meet to work on a game plan.

“I went to talk to him and he gave me running plans what I should during races,” Villamarin said. “One of the things he told me is I should run more even splits. I had the same problem with my first 5k at Telstar. I did really well — it was my first 5k of the season — I wasn’t pleased because the splits were very off and the same thing happened (Wednesday). I feel like I have to improve on that.”

He hopes he can cut down his time by another 21 seconds by the end of the season. Next year he wants to improve his time by another 30 seconds to get it down to 18:30.

He credits his improvements from last year to this year to his teammates.

“I really like the team we have going this year,” Villamarin said. “Especially our seniors, they get everyone really motivated and excited. Kenton Ernst, last year he motivated me to get my times down to the early 20s. This past summer I really wanted to compete with him, so I did a lot of training with him. Then there’s Abby L’abbe. She’s motivational for everyone and gets the team really spirited. Then there’s two of my classmates in the junior class, Steven and David, they are really nice and funny. They keep practices really entertaining.”

Lepage added Villamarin is also one of the captains on the team.

“Diego has been a leader for the boys’ team,” Lepage said. “Although he’s not the loud, yelling like that. He’s always cheering, always giving helpful hints, but never forcing it upon the other guys. He’s the type of kid at our first race in Madison — a four member team rely — we only had three. He ran the first leg of one and the last leg of another. He’s pretty selfless and is willing to run and run.”