Woodbridge and Mt. Carmel 16 Sept 2017

On Sept 17th 2017 the boys’ and girls’ cross country teams competed in one of the biggest cross country meets in the Country, the Woodbridge Cross Country Classic held at the Silverlakes Sports Park in Norco California. This is a 2-day meet with the weaker teams competing on Friday and the stronger teams on Saturday. Over 300 schools entered with over 5000 runners registered. The fastest varsity races were on Saturday Night under the lights placed around the Silverlakes soccer fields. Our boys ran at 7:30 pm and the girls competed in the rated race at 8:55 pm. All races were run over the same 3-mile course. In our boys’ varsity race our top 3-boys, Brad Busby, Ian Hurlburt, and Patrick Harris finished in a virtual dead heat with a time of 15:55 followed by Connor Jaynes in 16:29, Cole Mullins in 16:37, Casey Harris in 16:46, and Cole Nichols in 17:23. When all results from both days are combined we placed 4^th among the San Diego Section Schools that ran. Sage Creek easily won the team competition with a low-score of 43 followed by El Camino, Mission Hills, Coronado, then Poway out of the 31 San Diego Section school entered. Sage Creek has a powerful boys’ team and is in the same CIF division as Coronado (D-IV). El Camino and Mission Hills are D-I teams and Poway is a D-II team.

In the girls’ race, which was the 2^nd fastest of the two-day event, Teresa Perez nearly caught the leader to finish second with a time of 16:55.9 to Grace Catena from Palos Verdes who ran 16:55.4. Our second finisher was Madden Hundley who clocked 18:01 followed by Naya Tamirez (18:37), Jessica Ehert (18:50), Claire Morris (18:52), Abigail Hundley, and Natalya Gomez.  When the San Diego Section results were compiled from all races, Coronado came out on top with 79 points. Second was University City with 107 followed by El Camino (110), Cathedral Catholic (117), and Sage Creek with 132. Out of top 10 teams Coronado and Sage Creek were the only D-IV teams. Coronado, University City, and Cathedral are all in the Western League. Among San Diego Runners Perez’s time was over 30 seconds faster than the runner-up, Elise Boisvert from University City, who ran 17:29.4. Converted to 5000 meters Perez’s time equates to 17:35, over a minute faster than her former personal best run last year at the Stanford Invitational. She averaged 5:38 per mile. The Monday coaches poll now ranks the Coronado girls’ team 2^nd to La Costa Canyon, up from 5^th last week. This changes each week depending on the previous week’s races went. The rest of the top ten schools are Rancho Bernardo (3^rd), Canyon Crest (4^th), University City (5^th), El Camino (6^th), Cathedral Catholic (7^th), Sage Creek (8^th), Del Norte (9^th), and Scripps Ranch (10^th).

Our other race last Saturday was the Mt. Carmel Invitational at Morley Field where we entered several JV and new runners since we were limited to only 7-person varsity teams at Woodbridge. Since the Mt. Carmel races were all in the morning for our division, I could attend both events. Our 2 best finishers were Grant Hawthorne and Sofia Van Arsdale in the Division II freshmen races. Both placed 9^th in their races with Hawthorne running 17:56 in the boys’ 2.95-mile race and Van Arsdale clocking 18:03 in the girls’ 2.75-mile race.  Other finishers in the boys’ races were Chris Russell (18:53), Kent Kitabayshi (21:05), Orian James (22:05), Aiden Baumann (22:05), Will Leonard (23:25), and Christian Iverson (23:25). Also finishing for the girls were Regina Czerewko (22:09), Josie Morrissey (23:10), Kate Ruiz (23:14), and Abby Fabiszak (23:49).