Five South County runners qualified to compete in this year’s California state cross country championship meet Nov. 24 in Fresno’s Woodward Park.
None came home with a coveted division championship, though all came back with life-lasting memories — some of which exceeded expectations and some that did not.
The five local runners included Otay Ranch High School senior Justin Mulvany (Division I boys), Eastlake senior Luz Mercado (Division I girls), Olympian High School senior Mariana Beltran-Picos (Division I girls), Castle Park sophomore/junior Estela Bustillos (Division III girls) and High Tech High Chula Vista junior Drake Prince (Division IV boys).
The quintet qualified to compete at the state meet by finishing among the top runners in their respective divisional races at the San Diego Section championship meet Nov. 17 at Balboa Park’s Morley Field, the site of last Saturday’s Foot Locker Nationals.
Mulvany finished second among Division I boys individuals at the section finals while Beltran-Picos and Mercado finished fourth and seventh, respectively, among Division I girls.
Bustillos finished seventh among Division III girls while Prince finished ninth among Division IV boys.
Both Mulvany and Beltran-Picos were making their third trip to the state meet while Drake was making his second trip north. The other two runners were making their first trip to the state meet.
Mercado, the 2018 Mesa League individual champion, was the highest South County place-finisher at this year’s state championship meet with a 41st finish among the 188 runners in the Division I girls race. Mercado timed 18:48.3on the 5K course.
Beltran-Picos placed 51st in the same field in 18:58.8.
“It was good (to make it back again),” she said. “It was perfect weather for me. I didn’t PR but I had fun.”
Mulvany finished 45th in the Division I boys race in 15:52.5. The reigning Mesa League boys champion said he was not satisfied by his performance.
“The first mile I felt real good but at one-and-a-half miles, my legs gave out on me,” he said.
Prince finished 82nd in the Division IV boys race in 17:01.4 while Bustillos finished 114th (out of 214 runners) in the Division III girls race in 20:24.7.
Bustillos, the 2018 South Bay League champion, is a first-year cross country runner.
“She’s an amazing runner,” CPHS coach Jose Cobian Jr. said. “She didn’t have a full offseason (to prepare). She’s just a natural. She came out a little late. If she had more training, she might have done even better.
“She was the spark that we needed. It was a great pay-off for her.”
Bustillos is the first female runner from Castle Park to qualify for the state meet since sophomore Keeshawna Jackson accomplished the feat in 2010. “It’s been a while,” Cobian said.
Bustillos competed at the state meet on her birthday to make the event even more special.
“Not everyone can compete for a state championship on their birthday,” the CPHS coach said.
CALIFORNIA STATE CHAMPIONSHIP MEET
2018 Team and Individual Winners by Division
Division I Boys
Team: Great Oak (61, 1:16:49)
Individual: Matt Strangio, Jr., Jesuit (15:05)
Division II Boys
Team: Newbury Park (77, 1:17:51)
Individual: Nico Young, Jr., Newbury Park (15:00)
Division III Boys
Team: Ridgeview (83, 1:20:01)
Individual: Liam Anderson, Sr., Redwood-NCS (14:56)
Division IV Boys
Team: Laguna Beach (68, 1:20:09)
Individual: Anthony Grover, Jr., JSerra (15:22)
Division V Boys
Team: St. Margaret’s (95, 1:23:16)
Individual: Andre Williams, Sr., Sonoma Academy (15:36)
Division I Girls
Team: Great Oak (79, 1:30:56)
Individual: Tori Gaitan, Jr., Great Oak (17:20)
Division II Girls
Team: Claremont (82, 1:31:31)
Individual: Kristen Fahy, Sr., La Costa Canyon (17:23)
Division III Girls
Team: Vista del Lago (125, 1:36:34)
Individual: Riley Chamberlain, Fr., Del Oro (17:19)
Division IV Girls
Team: Sage Creek (110, 1:34:04)
Individual: Audrey Suarez, So., Mayfield (17:45)
Division V Girls
Team: Lick Wilmerding (97, 1:39:27)
Individual: Gabrielle Peterson, Sr., Healdsburg (17:45)
FOOT LOCKER NATIONALS SET END TO 2018 HIGH SCHOOL CROSS COUNTRY SEASON AT BALBOA PARK’S MORLEY FIELD
The 2018 high school cross country season finally ended with last Saturday’s 40th edition of the Foot Locker Nationals in front of another capacity crowd at Balboa Park’s Morley Field.
Two San Diego Section athletes — La Costa Canyon senior Kristin Fahy and Mission Hills senior Jonathan Velasco — were among the top 80 high school distance runners (40 boys and 40 girls) from across the country who comprised this year’s elite field.
Neither Fahy nor Velasco won their respective races, though both admitted they won respect for their competitors, each of whom was drawn from four regional championships throughout the country.
The top 10 finishers in each of four regional competitions advance to the Foot Locker Nationals to comprise the 40 entrants in each gender race.
Fahy, the defending San Diego Section Division II girls champion, who qualified for last weekend’s national championship field by winning the Foot Locker West Region finals the previous weekend in Walnut, finished 25th in last Saturday’s fast field with a time of 18:20.7 on the 5K course.
She won the Division II girls individual championship at the California state championship meet Nov. 24 in Fresno.
Velasco, the reigning San Diego Section Division I boys champion, finished 20th in last Saturday’s national championship field after placing ninth in the Foot Locker West Region championship race.
Velasco, who timed 16:01.9on the 5K course, challenged for the lead early in last Saturday’s race, moving up as high as fourth at the halfway mark, before dropping back in the field.
The race was streamed live at footlockercc.com. It was noted on the webcast that many athletes are used to running alone in local and state races. However, all the best runners are siphoned into one race at the Foot Locker Nationals, where runners are suddenly (and perhaps unexpectedly) are rubbing elbows with competitors, each of whom have the same goal in mind: to win the race.
The girls race was one for record books as two runners — the Northeast’s Sydney Masciarelli (Northbridge, Mass.) and the Midwest’s Katelynmne Hart (Glen Ellyn, Ill.)’s — broke away in the late stages. The two runners exchanged the lead several times on the final uphill before Masciarelli edged Hart by less than a second at the finish line.
Masciarelli, a basketball players, used her imposing 5-10 frame to good measure in gobbling up precious pieces of turf as she made one last burst at the finish line.
Photographer Ron Becijos captured the frenetic ending to the girls race.
And the boys race featured a jam-packed start …
Before one runner broke free to win …
Meanwhile, the boys pack remained tight throughout most of the race, especially through the first mile as the bulk of runners stayed together. They started to separate somewhat on the first downhill and it was left to Cole Hocker of Indianapolis (15:13.7) to best Jake Renfree of Knoxville (15:19.5) at the finish line to claim the 2018 Foot Locker national championship.
Hocker said he was motivated to win the Foot Locker race after placing runner-up at the preceding Nike Nationals held Dec. 1 in Portland.
The Foot Locker Cross Country Championships is comprised of four regional 5K races, Midwest (Kenosha, Wis.), Northeast (Bronx, N.Y.), South (Charlotte, N.C.), and West (Walnut, Calif.), where the top 10 boys and top 10 girls from each region’s seeded races qualified to compete in the National Finals.
The Midwest won both gender titles at this year’s Foot Locker Nationals. The Midwest out-pointed the Northeast, 20-40, to win the girls team title and out-pointed the South, 25-35, to win the boys race.
The West team finished third in the boys race and fourth in the girls race. The South was third in the girls race and Northeast was fourth in the boys race.
Finish line
A number of current and former Metro Conference cross country coaches helped run logistics at last Saturday’s national championship event.
The course was in surprisingly good condition considering the downpour of two inches of rain just two days earlier. The downhill remained hard-packed, which helped runners accelerate toward the finish.
One runner in the girls race fell prior to the three-mile mark, but she made it up on her own and walked with a motorized escort toward the finish line.
Another runner in the boys race stumbled just prior to the finish line. However, he got up to cross the finish line.
The Morley Field course has launched the professional careers of an impressive array of prestigious runners in years past, including Olympians Ryan Hall, Meb Keflezighi and Kara Goucher.
Among the spectators was former Bonita Vista standout Eric Avila, who went on to earn accolades at the University of Southern Oregon. Avila won the Division I individual boys section championship in 2006 en route to placing third among individuals at the state championship meet.
Avila, who is now running professionally for adidas, has dipped under the four-minute mark in the mile 11 times so far this year. He resumes racing on the pro circuit in January.
Fahy and Kashon Harrison of Fruitland, N.M., won Foot Locker West Regional championships.
Fahy claimed the title in 17.52.8 over Allie Janke, a sophomore at North Central High School in Spokane, Wash., who finished in 17.57.9. Anna Martin, a senior at Lehi High School in Lehi, Utah, placed third in 18:06.5.
Harrison, a senior at Kirtland Central High School, finished first to claim his second regional title in two years in 15:33.6. This was Harrison’s fifth year participating in the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships. William Frankenfeld, a senior at Long Beach Poly High School, placed second in 15:34.4, while Nicholas Russell, a senior at Bishop Kelly High School, finished third in 15.35.3.
