There was a lot to cheer about at last Friday’s South Bay Invitational cross country meet, especially if you wore the colors of the Otay Ranch Mustangs, Olympian Eagles, Sweetwater Red Devils and Southwest Raiders.
Highlights:
Otay Ranch flew to a phenomenal finish to win the boys varsity race with a division low 62 points — nearly half that of runner-up Olympian’s 121 points. The Mustangs grabbed three of the top seven place-finishes (heading down the final hill they had three of the top five) to build their huge lead on the scoreboard.
Otay Ranch senior Cale Parise was third overall among individuals in 16:14. He trailed only race winner Alex Egan (16:05) of San Pasqual and runner-up Alexander Doyle (16:07) of Rancho Buena Vista.
Otay Ranch senior Jeremiah Suzara (16:21) followed in sixth place while sophomore Justin Mulvany (16:24) was seventh. Both Mustangs trailed Olympian senior Diego Arriola (16:20) in fifth place.
Parise, Suzara and Mulvany were separated by 10 seconds. Following their lead were fellow Otay Ranch scorers Even LeDesma (20th, 17:07) and Harold Thomas (27th, 17:18).
Otay Ranch head coach Ron Moore was elated by the team championship showing.
“These guys have worked hard over the summer and have now gotten to the point of trusting each other,” Moore explained. “When you get to that point of trusting each other, you run better.”
Southwest junior Jacob Fiero continued to excel by finishing eighth in 16:28.
Olympian’s top five scorers also included senior Jorge Tejeda (15th, 16:55), junior Nicholas Albro (17th, 17:05), senior Sergio Renteria (41st, 17:41) and junior Julio Navarro (45th, 17:45).
Four of the top eight finishers in the 2.5-mile girls varsity race were Metro runners: Olympian sophomore Mariana Beltran-Picos (second, 15:41), junior Alexandra Martinez (fifth, 16:05), Otay Ranch sophomore Yllana Casim (sixth, 16:22) and Southwest senior Fabiola Gonzalez (eighth, 16:26).
Olympian finished sixth among teams with 166 points while Otay Ranch finished ninth with 219 points.
The place-finish was something to be proud of for Casim in particular.
“It feels great to be at the top (on the team) as a sophomore after starting out at the bottom of the barrel as a freshman,” Casim explained. “It feels great to make so much improvement in that short of time. It’s all to hard work and having great teammates.”
Sweetwater freshman Gabriella Rodriguez won the 2.5-mile girls junior varsity race in 18:35 to lead the Lady Red Devils to a fourth-place team finish. She finished four seconds ahead of Grossmont junior Kaila Talo and nine seconds ahead of West Hills sophomore Makynzie Floyd, the race’s third-place finisher.
Three SuHi runners notched top 10 finishes in the 260-deep race. Freshman Monica Lona was fifth in 19:01 while sophomore Nicole Moran was seventh in 19:04. Hilltop freshman Isabella Carvajal was the fourth Metro Conference runner to claim a berth in the top 10 with a time of 19:09 in ninth place.
Olympian and Otay Ranch engineered first- and second-place finishes, respectively, in the boys junior varsity race. Olympian won with a low score of 50 points while Otay Ranch followed in tight formation with 54 points.
Runners from the two league rivals secured five of the top seven individual finishes in the race. Otay Ranch junior Giovanni Stone won the race in 17:58 followed by Olympian senior Tanner Claudio (18:05). Grossmont juniors Hayden White (18:06) and Jeffrey Kay (18:21) finished third and fourth, respectively. Then it was three more Metro runners: Otay Ranch senior Dale Alfafara (fifth, 18:27), Olympian senior Agustin Richardson (sixth, 18:31) and Olympian senior Rodrigo Blanco (seventh, 18:40).
A total of 218 runners participated in the race.
Olympian finished second among teams in the 5K boys frosh/soph race with 81 points while Otay Ranch was sixth with 167 points and Chula Vista was 10th with 264 points.
Olympian sophomore Kerris Stambaugh was second among individuals in 18:16 in the 227-deep race. Eagles teammate Cisco Gonzalez crossed the finish line in eighth place in 18:38.
Notepad
•Point Loma won the boys frosh/soph race with a low score of 33 points, led by individual race winner Joshua Bauer, a sophomore, who timed 17:44 on the 5K course.
•Point Loma won the girls varsity race with a low score of 83 points. The Lady Pointers’ five-person spread was a tight 26 seconds.
•West Hills and Grossmont tied with 78 points at the top of the girls junior varsity team standings, with West Hills winning the tiebreaker based on finish of the teams’ sixth runners.
Complete race results are available on www.athletic.net and www.sdtrackmag.com.
