It’s a race that high school cross country runners have penciled on their calendars months in advance. Last Saturday’s San Diego Section championships did not disappoint for a number of elite Metro Conference runners who will now be making the trek to this weekend’s state championship meet in Fresno.
Otay Ranch won the Division I boys team title while Bonita Vista placed second in the division to highlight the performances by local runners that also included four individual state meet qualifiers: Eastlake freshman Patricia Miessner, Olympian sophomore Mariana Beltran-Picos, Southwest junior Jacob Fierro and Hilltop senior Brianna Smith.
The Mustangs and Barons finished in that order at the preceding week’s Mesa League finals. Four points separated the teams at that Rohr Park race. Otay Ranch secured a bit more breathing room in their rematch at Morley Field.
The Mustangs finished with a division low 74 points, followed by the Barons with 95 points.
Torrey Pines finished third with 142 points, followed by Carlsbad in fourth with 163 points.
Olympian, which trailed both Otay Ranch and Bonita Vista at the league finals, finished seventh with 193 points at last weekend’s CIF finals.
This is the first time that Otay Ranch has sent a team to the state meet in the years immediately after the school opened in 2003 under the direction of since retired coach Ian Cumming.
Ron Moore, who took over the reins from Cumming, said he did not know how to react after this team won the division title.
“It’s my first year as cross country coach,” explained an otherwise jubilant Moore, a longtime assistant coach under Cumming.
Julian Valdez and Brandon Velasquez joined Moore on the coaching staff to help train the team, with continued workout advice from Cumming being essential, Moore said.
“The guys just worked hard,” Moore said. “They had a good week of practice. They raced the way we wanted them to. They closed a gap on our team that had been 40 seconds down to 20 seconds.”
The Mustangs experienced some flip-flops in position as several runners stepped up from the league finals.
Sophomore Justin Mulvany finished fourth among individuals in the Division I race in 16:22, followed by senior teammate Jeremiah Suzara in fifth place with the same time.
Suzara, the reigning Mesa League champion, had finished with a six-second bulge on Mulvany at the league finals when Mulvany finished as the team’s No. 2 runner.
Senior Cale Parise (16:46) finished eighth in the Division I field to propel Otay Ranch to an early scoring lead.
Senior Evan LeDesma (17:33) finished as the Mustangs’ fourth scorer in 27th place while senior Harold Thomas (17:39) rounded out Otay Ranch’s top five scorers in 30th place.
The top 20 runners received medals. Both Otay Ranch and Bonita Vista each had three runners pick up medals in the field of 136 runners.
Bonita Vista secured its state berth as junior Isaiah Labra finished second among individuals in 16:19, followed by junior Armando Campos (17:06) in 10th place and junior Toshin Agbede (17:21) in 17th place.
Sophomore Christian Mason (17:45) finished 32nd while senior Skyler Sherman (17:48) finished 34th.
Labra finished seven seconds behind Division I race winner Xander Doyle of Rancho Buena Vista. The Bonita Vista runner finished two seconds ahead of Mira Mesa junior Stefen Rasmusson, the race’s third-place finisher.
“It’s the most important race of the season,” Labra explained. “We’ve been waiting for it all season. We focused everything on this race. We were one step closer (to state). It’s a big deal to come here and place second. This was one of our biggest races.
“To come here and get second is phenomenal. It shows what we’ve been working for all season. To come back here and qualify as a team has been our goal all season.”
Interestingly, BVHS head coach Mat Seat was a member of the Barons’ state qualifying team that took eighth at the state meet in 2005. He said the road to the state meet includes a healthy dose of mental toughness and physical endurance.
“You have to have mental toughness and put in the work,” Seat explained. “There are no shortcuts. It’s a long process of putting in the miles and being able to come through mentally and physically at the end of the season.
“We would like to have won but we’ve been dealing with a lot of injuries, so it was great to get that second-place finish. I’m very proud of these boys for sticking together as a team and putting it all together when it counted the most.”
Olympian produced two medal-winners: senior Diego Arriola (13th, 17:14) and junior Nicholas Albro (16th, 17:21).
Eastlake finished 13th among Division I boys teams. South Bay League champion Chula Vista finished 16th. CV senior Cristian Alcantar finished 25th among individuals in 17:31.
San Ysidro was 18th while Sweetwater was 19th. San Ysidro junior Victor Reygoza finished 24th in 17:28.
State of mind
Eastlake’s Miessner finished the Division I girls race in 16:59 – two seconds ahead of Olympian’s Beltran-Picos, the reigning Mesa League champion.
Miessner and Beltran-Picos were the third and fourth qualifiers of the five individual state qualifiers in the division.
Olympian freshman Aylette Cisneros had a great race by finishing eighth in 17:27, as did Bonita Vista senior Natalie Medina (ninth in 17:31), but both runners were shut out of individual state berths.
Beltran-Picos had finished eight seconds ahead of Miessner at the preceding league finals.
“At the beginning of the season I was hoping to be in the top 20 to 30 finishers (at CIF),” Miessner explained. “When I started getting top five (during the regular season), it was crazy. When I placed first freshman at the Mt. Carmel Invitational, it was like ‘my gosh!’”
She said her goal for the state meet will be to place among the top 20 finishers.
“I feel pretty excited because it wasn’t expected,” she said. “I’m very happy to be here.”
Beltran-Picos led the Division I girls race at the onset before dropping back to second, then third as the race progressed. She was among the top five runners as the pack came down the hill.
“Three girls got in front of me, then I was in fourth,” she said. “Then I took fifth.”
Westview senior Eric Barrett won the Division I girls race in 16:36, followed closely across the finish line by Carlsbad sophomore Hannah Hartwell (16:37). San Marcos freshman Caitlin Cornell placed fourth in 16:48.
Then came Eastlake’s Miessner and Olympian’s Beltran-Picos.
Westview won the team title with 65 points while Torrey Pines finished second with 90 points. San Marcos was third with 111 points, followed by Eastlake in fourth place with 126 points and Olympian in fifth place with 142 points.
Otay Ranch was ninth with 223 points while Bonita Vista was 11th with 277 points. South Bay League champion Sweetwater was 13th with 418 points, followed by Chula Vista in 15th place with 445 points. San Ysidro placed 19thwith 603 points.
Southwest’s Fierro placed ninth in the Division III boys race to secure an individual state qualifying berth while Hilltop’s Smith finished 12th in the Division II girls race to do the same.
Fierro, the reigning South Bay League individual boys champion, timed 16:52 on the 3.04-mile course to finish as the final individual state qualifier in the division.
Smith timed 17:33 on the 2.75-mile course as the third of five individual state qualifiers.
Notepad
South Bay League individual girls champion Liliana Hakim (18:21) finished 24th in the Division III girls race while Southwest senior Fabiola Gonzalez (18:38) was 31st.
Montgomery placed 15th among Division III boys teams while Mar Vista was 18th.
Mater Dei Catholic finished eighth among Division IV boys teams while High Tech High Chula Vista finished 10th.
Senior Luis Humberto Cerna Gomez was Mater Dei Catholic’s top finisher in 23rd place in 17:54, followed by classmate Juan Pablo Villegas (31st) in 18:12.
Senior Emilio Lopez-Gallo was HTH-CV’s top finisher in 41st place in 18:41.
Mater Dei Catholic senior Brighid Healy (19:23) finished 23rd in the Division IV girls race while freshman teammate Dasha Battaglia (19:31) was 25th.
High Tech High Chula Vista finished 10th in the Division IV girls team standings.
Chula Vista Learning Community Charter sophomore Juliana Marquez (19:46) finished 18th among individuals in the Division V girls race.
