Otay Ranch harriers close out 10th-place finish at state championship meet

Malibu’s Claudia Lane and Reed Brown of South Lake, Texas, ran to first-place finishes at last Saturday’s 39th annual Foot Locker Cross County Championship national finals at San Diego’s Morley Field.

Lane won wire to wire in 17:04.8 while Reed took the lead after the first downhill and bested runner-up Finn Gessner (Madison, Wis.) of the Midwest team by nearly three seconds at the tape in 15:01.8.

Lane won going away by nearly four seconds over South runner Nevada Mareno (Raleigh, N.C.).

Two weeks earlier the scene was Woodward Park in Fresno for the California state cross country championships. Present were the San Diego Section Division I champion Otay Ranch Mustangs and division runner-up Bonita Vista Barons along with four individual Metro Conference qualifiers.

The Mustangs, making their third trek to the state meet in school history but the first in more than a decade, closed out the season with a meteoric 10th place finish while the Barons, no strangers to state meet finals and top 10 finishes, placed 20th.

“The kids ran well,” Otay Ranch coach Ron Moore explained. “They had a really great time. It wasn’t cold; it wasn’t hot. They ran really well, It was a positive experience.

“At the beginning of the season, the kids were told that if they put in the work that they would have a good chance to win CIF.”
The 10th place state finish was topping on the cake.

Senior Jeremiah Suzara led the Mustangs on the state meet 5K course with a time of 15:42.3. He finished just 1.1 seconds shy of Rancho Buena Vista senior Xander Doyle, the Division I section boys champion, who finished in 19th place in 15:41.2.

Otay Ranch’s next finishers included senior Cale Parise (26th, 15:51.3), sophomore Justin Mulvany (27th, 15:53.2), senior Juan Camacho (150th, 17:05.7), senior Evan LeDesma (172nd, 17:26.3), junior Giovanni Stone (174th, 17:27) and senior Harold Thomas (187th, 18:07.2).

Two hundred runners participated in the race.

Mulvany had led Otay Ranch at the section finals with a fourth-place individual finish.

Otay Ranch finished 21 points ahead of Bonita Vista at the section finals. The spread between the Mustangs and Barons at the state finals was even greater at 116 points.

“We did pretty good,” Moore offered in an understatement.

Bonita Vista junior Isaiah Labra, who posted a second-place individual finish at the preceding section finals, led the Barons on the course with a 36th place finish in 15:59.8.

Teammates following across the finish line included junior Armando Campos (63rd, 16:15), junior Toshin Agbede (126th, 16:48.4), sophomore Christian Mason (155th, 17:08.5), senior Skyler Sherman (164th, 17:17.2), senior Mano Sanchez (170th, 17:24.2) and senior Matthew Borja (190th, 18:20.3).

The one-two finish at the top of the Division I team standings at the section finals obviously produced a great source of pride for the Mesa League and, understandably, the Metro Conference.

“It says that there were some good teams down here this year,” Moore said. “But you also have to consider that the North County always seems to produce good teams. We knew we were somewhere close. When you get to the finals, anything can happen. We got first place and Bonita got second.”

The Mustangs return three of their top seven runners next season. Four of the seven Bonita Vista runners at this year’s state meet were underclassmen.

Among the Metro Conference’s individual state meet qualifiers:

•Olympian sophomore Mariana Beltran-Picos finished 38th in the 199-deep Division I girls field in 18:35.2.

•Eastlake freshman Patricia Miessner finished 49th in the Division I girls field in 18:45.

•Hilltop senior Brianna Smith finished 98th in the 192-deep field Division II girls field in 19:38.6.

•Southwest junior Jacob Fierro finished 99th in the 202-deep Division III boys field in 16:47.9.

Golden State

San Diego teams fared exceptionally well in Fresno. Cathedral Catholic won the Division II boys team title while six section runners recorded top 10 individual place-finishes.

Cathedral Catholic junior Joaquin Martinez de Pinillos led the Dons across the finish line with a third-place individual finish in 15:07.4.

La Costa Canyon sophomore Kristin Fahy finished third in the Division III girls race while teammate McKenna Brown was seventh.

Sage Creek freshman Skyler Wallace finished sixth in the Division IV girls race.

La Jolla Country Day junior Lexi Watkins placed seventh in the Division V girls race.

Maranatha Christian junior Noah Monroy finished sixth in the Division V boys race.

Malibu’s Lane gave a preview of things to come at the Foot Locker nationals by winning the state Division IV race with a sophomore and division course-record best of 16:45.

Cooper Teare of St. Joseph Notre Dame won his second consecutive boys state title with an all-time Division V record time of 14:59.

San Luis Obispo’s Callum Bolger, who placed 10th at the Foot Locker nationals, posted the third-best time overall at the California state meet in 14:57.4