SGV Week 1 Round Up: La Mirada Girls Win at Riverside

About 40% of the San Gabriel Valley’s cross country programs opened their seasons this past weekend, scattered around Southern California in mostly low-key opening races. Here’s a quick round-up of the four races held outside of the SGV..

Great Cow Run – 3 miles

The Great Cow run, 3 flat miles on a fast course at Cerritos County Park, is one of the top opening meets in SoCal, SGV powers California and Arcadia opened here, but neither program ran close full-strength. The Apache boys were 8th overall, with El Rancho a solid 15th/83:09.

Complete Results

In the girls race, Cal finished well at 6th/98:04, with senior Mai Quesada leading SGV athletes with her 22nd/19:06 finish – nearly a minute better than last year at this meet

The best male performance was from Rowland senior Nicholas Acevedo, who is way ahead of his 2018 bests with a tenth overall finish in 15:25 on the fast, flat 3-mile course.

Riverside Showcase – 2.25 miles

Complete Results

SGV schools came out strong on this opener on a short, 2.25 mile version of the CIF-SS Championship course in Riverside.

The La Mirada girls led the charge, winning this 10-team meet by putting their first five in the top 21 of the race. Bonita were 4th in the race that saw SGV girls put five in the first ten: Alexis Corvese (St. Lucy’s) 4th/14:13; Mariah Waters (La Mirada) 6th/14:26; Arianna Kumar (Bonita) 8th/14:34; Natalia Zuniga (La Mirada) 9th/14:37; Sophia Gomez (La Mirada).

CIF-ranked Bonita were the top boys team, finishing 7th in a field of 18. Daniel Echeveste (Bonita) 5th/11:18; Danny Ebiner (Damien) 10th/11:25 had the top local performances.

 

And, at the UCSB Gaucho Invitational, the Polytechnic girls finished 7th in a field of 11, led by senior Sophie Phinney, who was 19th/20:28 on the flat 3-mile course. The boys were led by a 29th/16:55 finish by senior Evan Hayes but did not score as a team.  (Full Results)

 

Parents, friends, coaches – please help make our coverage better by sending race notes and photos (right away!) to info@sgvtrackandfield.net

CIF-SS Polls – Week 1: We’re Up to 14

The California and St. Paul boys teams rode strong opening performances to move into the rankings this week.

This puts fourteen SGV schools among the top 100 schools of the massive CIF Southern Section. These early season rankings are still mostly projections – the rankings matter in October when they can become the basis for advancing to the CIF championships.

Here are the Week 1 CIF Rankings

SGV Boys

  • Div I: La Serna – #8 (9th last week); California – #9 (Not Ranked)
  • Div II: Claremont – #4 (4th)
  • Div III: Arroyo – #4 (6th); Bonita – #9 (5th),
  • Div IV: South Pasadena – #10 (10th)
  • Div V: Flintridge Prep – #4 (4th); St. Paul – 10th (NR)

SGV Girls

  • Div I:
  • Div II: Claremont – #1 (1st last week)
  • Div III: Bonita – #7 (6th)
  • Div IV: La Cañada – #3 (3rd), South Pasadena – #6 (6th), Mayfield – #7 (7th)
  • Div V: Flintridge Prep – #5 (5th)

Fastback: Arroyo Doubles Up

Diamond Bar’s Lukas Amare – off to a hot start!

On a day of partial teams running on a short course, Arroyo were the top finishers in both the girls and boys races at the Fastback Invitational.

Complete Results

Running one more year at Arcadia Park while the Mt.SAC renovations are wrapping up, the host Knights were the top SGV teams on this flat and fast 2-mile course, both finishing 7th overall against a bigger field than previous year.

Diamond Bar senior Lukas Amare and Arroyo junior Saket Sama had impressive performances to lead the SGV boys. Lukas was 3rd overall, and his 9:30 bested his track 3200m PR! CIF 1600m finalist Sama was 4th overall in 9:36, a huge improvement from last year.

Lily Miller (Jr, Vivian Webb) was the top local girl, her controlled 11:46 was 8th overall.

These opening meets also give us a peak at promising frosh – tops among the girls was West Covina’s Maya Garcia – 12:41 for 5th in the frosh race, 60th overall and tenth best among all SGV girls. Owen Hayden (St. Francis) was just as impressive, finishing 3rd/10:29 in the 9th grade race, 78th overall and 14th best among all SGV boys.

SGV top tens, team rankings and team leaders after the jump. Continue reading Fastback: Arroyo Doubles Up

Lancer Invite: The Hosts Lead Out the Season

La Serna leads out the boys race, with race winner Connor Parker (c) just behind

Rising power La Serna expanded their XC portfolio by hosting a new meet this year - the Lancer Invitational – a 2-mile opener over the familiar rolling hills of La Mirada Park.

Complete Results

The hosts took both races, the girls edged out Bishop Amat 24-31 while the boys rolled to a big win. Maddie Franco (La Serna, Sr) took the girls race by 18 seconds in 12:05, while Diamond Ranch Connor Parker was a close winner in an excellent 10:01.

And here’s a photo gallery from the meet.