While the winter wet season may pose some problems for outdoor sports such as football, girls field hockey and water polo as they make the transition from the fall calendar to a December/January start, cross country runners may actually benefit from the late start to the 2020-21 interscholastic season.
“In what will be a shortened and compacted season beginning in December, the weather should allow for fantastic times for runners with cooler temperatures playing a big role in allowing for faster times,” Otay Ranch coach Julian Valdez proposed.
With a talented senior class having departed due to graduation from last season, this season’s storylines are starting to look rather intriguing as top returners and impact newcomers continue individual training in advance of the opening of formal team training camps later in the year.
Based on times posted at last year’s Metro Conference championship meet, the Otay Ranch Mustangs, Hilltop Lancers and Castle Park Trojans could be leading the pack among boys teams in 2020-21 while Eastlake looks to continue its dominance among girls teams.
“I’m really looking forward to this year’s boys’ cross country season,” Hilltop coach Chris Gentry said. “We’ll have six returning varsity runners in which five of them are juniors and one sophomore. We have four or five runners that can run a 5K (3.1 miles) under 17 minutes, and more than one boy runner who can finish under 16 minutes.
“The team goal is win with the Mesa League banner this year and to go to CIF and do the same.”
Lofty goals but the Lancers do appear to be moving up.
As a team last year, Hilltop won the Red Division at the prestigious Mt. SAC Invitational, an event that stands as a measuring stick for high school and community college teams throughout the western region.
The Lancers went on to post a meteoric third place finish (second among Mesa League teams) at the Metro Conference championship meet
Jimmy Byland will be leading the charge again this year for the Lancers after posting an amazing finish to the 2019 season in which he placed third among individuals at the conference finals and fifth overall at the Division II San Diego Section finals to qualify for the state championship meet in Fresno.
Miguel Tisnado, Noah Rosenberg, Eddie Castaneda and Leon McClain follow Byland’s lead on the course.
The departure of Olympian’s Carter Stuhlmacher, last year’s Mesa League individual champion as a freshman (second overall in the conference), to Florida opens up the field quite a bit this season.
Subtracting Stuhlmacher from the equation, Byland returns as the conference’s top individual while Tisnado ranks sixth.
Byland finished 10 seconds behind Stuhlmacher on the 3.02-mile course to place third overall in the conference field while Tisnado posted a 13th-place finish among conference runners (eighth among Mesa League runners).
Otay Ranch, Hilltop, Olympian, Eastlake, Bonita Vista and Mater Dei Catholic finished in that order among boys teams at last year’s Mesa League finals at Rohr Park.
Otay Ranch looks to contend for the top spot among conference teams again this year with five of the top 15 returning times and eight of the top 22.
Top returners for the Mustangs include senior Grant Bice and Dominic Garcia, juniors Aydan Wohlford and Ruben Baza and sophomore transfer Jacob Juden.
Bice finished ninth in last year’s combined conference field (fifth among Mesa League runners) while Wohlford was 12th overall.
Bice has the third-best time among returning conference runners while Wohlford has the fifth-best time. Garcia has the eighth-best returning time while Baza has the 11th best time.
Juden, who will have to sit out the first 30 days after transferring from nearby Olympian High School, clocks in with the 14th best returning time.
Among returning Mesa League runners, Brice ranks second, Wohlford ranks third, Garcia ranks fifth, Baza ranks seventh and Juden ranks 10th.
Bice and Garcia are both returning senior captains.
Other returning runners in the Mustangs stable include senior Adrien Galuz, juniors Diego Vizcarra, Daniel Kim and Austin Parise and sophomores Chris Harvie and Jake Shorey.
Galuz and Vizcarra finished less than two seconds apart in placing second and third at last year’s Metro junior varsity finals, with Parise and Kim placing three seconds apart in fifth and seventh place, respectively.
The Mustangs stampeded to the JV team title with an explosive 15-75 scoring gap over runner-up Olympian,
With seven juniors and four sophomores owning the top 15 returning times on the Otay Ranch squad, Valdez is excited not only about the potential for this season but also for upcoming seasons.
“The Otay Ranch men’s cross country team is preparing for what could be a special next few seasons,” Valdez said. “This season’s team being anchored by returning senior captains Grant Bice and Dominic Garcia as well as senior Adrien Galuz, who have worked hard in the offseason to keep the family culture strong.
“Training individually has been a challenge, but sight of the team goals have not been lost. The talented sophomore and junior class which adds sophomore Jacob Juden into the mix is excited to build on their success from the past season. When competing as a class they finished no worse than fourth at the Canyon Crest Invitational, Ian Cumming/Tim Latham Invitational and Kit Carson Invitational. Those talented sophomores and juniors now look to compete for a spot in the team’s top seven.”
Next in line
Other male runners listed among the top 15 returning times from last year’s conference finals include San Ysidro senior Missael Felix, Southwest junior William Wines, Castle Park senior Anthony Halbert, Castle Park sophomore Dylan Miramontes, Bonita Vista junior Enrique Aranda, Eastlake senior Edgar Salazar and Olympian seniors Andres Aguilar and Ernesto Villaneuva.
Felix holds the top time among top returning South Bay League runners, second overall in the conference, while Wines ranks second among league returners, fourth overall in the conference.
Felix finished fourth overall at last year’s conference finals, second among South Bay League runners, while Wines ranked 10th in the conference, fifth in league.
Halbert owns the third-best time among returning South Bay League runners while Miramontes follows with the fourth-best time to clearly give the Trojans a potentially lethal one-two punch.
Halbert finished 14th at last year’s conference finals, sixth in league.
Aranda holds the 10th best time among returning conference runners (sixth in the Mesa League) while Salazar ranks 12th overall (eighth in league).
Olympian’s Aguilar and Villanueva rank with the 13th and 15th best times among returning conference returners (ninth and 11th in league) to round out what looks to be a highly competitive field.
Bonita Vista coach Dan Kettlehake believes that if everyone on his squad is healthy and competes to their abilities that the Barons could field a strong team this season.
“The top boys have been training well during the offseason and will be considerably stronger,” Kettlehake said.
Top returners include juniors Samuel Hernandez, Pierce Manson and Aranda, seniors Maxx Olivo and Luke Svehaug and upcoming junior Max Anderson.
Hernandez and Anderson were injured at the end of the 2019 season and did not compete at the Metro finals, lowering the Barons’ scoring potential. Hernandez finished eighth as a freshman at the 2018 conference meet.
If Hernandez can enter the season back on the beam, Bonita Vista’s fortunes will be buoyed.
Kettlehake sees many challenges to overcome.
“All we know at this point is practice is scheduled to start on Dec. 12,” Kettlehake said. “CIF is tentatively scheduled for March 20 and the state meet is tentatively scheduled for March 27.
“The biggest challenge for training is having such a long period of time in between seasons. The only track meet we competed in was on March 7, so we have been out of competition since then. We had a nine-week training plan for the summer that we adjusted as soon as the announcement was made that there would be no fall sports.
“Right now we are keeping the mileage low and easy to prevent burnout since the season is not scheduled to start until Dec. 12. We will institute a more detailed preseason training plan starting around Oct. 1. High school runners cannot train rigorously for eight months without risking injury. As for a winter season, rain, cold and shorter daylight hours may present some training challenges, but nothing too severe.”
With meets being held during the winter months, with earlier sunsets compared to September and October, for instance, it might be necessary to have earlier start times.
Girl power
Eastlake powered to a top finish at last year’s conference finals with 29 points — well ahead of runner-up Otay Ranch (63 points) and third place Olympian (73 points).
With six of the top returning 11 times, the Lady Titans look to continue their local dominance in 2020-21. The influx of another strong freshman class will continue to buoy the program to help it maintain its standard for excellence at the section level.
As a freshman last year Amanda Challburg finished a scant two seconds behind conference individual champion Mckenzie Kelly of Otay Ranch. Could the field be Challburg’s to win in 2021?
Junior teammate Savannah Kipp might have something to say about that after finishing a scant two seconds behind Challburg to place third overall at the conference finals.
Eastlake has the top two returning runners in the conference, which will make them extremely difficult to defeat, especially when considering what follows in the lineup.
Sophomore Vanessa Wimbish finished ninth at last year’s conference finals and possesses the fifth-best returning time, while juniors Natalie Borba and Melissa Mekitarian finished 11th and 12th, respectively, at last year’s conference finals and rank as the seventh and eighth best returners this season (sixth and seventh in league).
Sophomore Cameron Cruz finished 14th at last year’s conference finals and ranks 11th best among returners this season (10th in league).
Bonita Vista should be giving chase this season with senior Sequoia Kriss and junior Laurent Salt ranking third and fourth among conference (and league) returners.
Kriss finished fifth at last year’s league finals while Salt was seventh, with both runners spaced by eight seconds on the course. Kriss ranks third and Salt fourth among returning conference runners.
Other top returners on the BVHS girls squad include juniors Savanna Sierra and Diandra Jara and sophomores Maritza Cuevas and Rei Fulinara.
This appears to be a young but experienced squad that can continue to develop to reach a peak in coming seasons.
“Based on results from the 2019 conference meet, our girls should be very competitive this season,” Kettlehake said.
Otay Ranch, led by top returners Autumn Filson and Elicia Arredondo, should also be a contender with four of the top 15 returning times in the conference and six of the top 19 returning times.
Arredondo, a junior, ranks eighth among Mesa League returners while Filson, a senior, ranks 10th after finishing 13th and 15th, respectively, at last year’s conference championship meet.
Junior Lauren Medina (13th) and sophomore Salma Franke (15th) both rank among the conference’s top 15 returning runners and help buttress the team’s scoring potential.
Otay Ranch edged Eastlake, 26-30, to capture the top spot as last year’s girls junior varsity finals. Top finishers for the Lady Mustangs, all underclassmen, included Leila Fuerte, Serena Villapando, Alexandra Dickey, Sage Lee and Skylar Pires.
“After seeing Mckenzie Kelly be the first female Metro Conference champion from Otay Ranch since Carina Gillespie and (win) the first outright girls JV championship since the start of the award in 2018, the Lady Mustangs are ready to put up another strong season,” Valdez said.
“Led by returning senior leaders Autumn Filson and Skylar Pires, the Lady Mustangs have remained a tight knit group focused on building community and culture as well as building on their cumulative 16-4 record over the past two seasons.
“In addition to the depth of talent returning as seen with seven of the top nine times, headlined by junior standouts Elicia Arredondo, and the team’s most improved award winner Lauren Medina, as well as talented sophomore Franke, the Mustangs also welcome a talented class of ninth graders led by Ali Parise. This upcoming season ought to be an exciting one.”
Otay Ranch is scheduled to compete in the Canyon Crest Invitational, Vaquero Invitational, Ian Cumming/Tim Latham Invitational, Dana Hills Invitational, Mt. Carmel Invitational, Mt. SAC and Kit Carson Invitational.
Olympian should not be overlooked in the field with top returners Maya Galvan, a junior, and Victoria Ames, a sophomore, both cracking the ranks of the conference’s top 15 returning harriers.
Galvan finished 16th in last year’s conference field and ranks 12th among returners this season while Ames finished 19th at last year’s conference finals and ranks 14th among returners this season.
Chula Vista senior Clarissa Hoffas ranks as the top returning South Bay League runner after posting a runner-up finish to since graduated Estela Bustillos of Castle Park.
Hoffas ranked 10th overall in the conference field and possesses the sixth-best returning time this year.
Sweetwater edged Chula Vista by seven points at last year’s Metro finals for the lead among South Bay League teams and should be competitive again this year.
