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Robyn
Guggiana (Warren, Downey) Super Junior Eighth in Mt. SAC Team Sweeps
Day
after Car Accident - Kirby Lee
If Robyn Guggiana needed a shot in the arm as a boost for Saturday's
Mt. San Antonio College cross country invitational, this wasn't what the
Warren High junior had in mind.
Guggiana suffered a bruised right shoulder in an automobile accident on
Friday night as a passenger in a car that was sideswiped.
"It was like bumper cars," said Guggiana, rubbing a sore spot
on her arm the size of a baseball. "I've never been in an accident.
I was so nervous that I couldn't sleep. It was quite a jolt."
The jostling in Saturday's team sweepstakes race didn't help. But the
injury didn't seem to be much of a detriment for the defending San Gabriel
Valley League champion.
Guggiana finished eighth in a school record 18 minutes, 17 seconds over
the benchmark 2.91-mile layout. The performance was more remarkable under
the poor air quality from a raging fire in Rancho Cucamonga and temperatures
in the 90s that forced the final 15 races to be cancelled in the largest
cross country meet in the nation.
Guggiana, along with St. Paul senior Lauren Magdaleno, who was 10th in
the individual sweepstakes race, turned in the area's fastest marks in
the 56th annual meet.
Warren, lifted by Guggiana and juniors Stephany Guzman (19:36) and Evelyn
Navarro (19:37) in 44th and 45th and sophomore China Fleming (19:46) in
50th, placed seventh in the team competition with 202 points.
Murrieta Valley, the state's top-ranked team in Division I, defeated Reno,
67-80, despite the Nevada school's 1-2 finish of sisters Collie and Marie
Lawrence in 17:32 and 17:33. Wilson was ninth with 213 points, led by
junior Bina Gold, 20th in 19:02 and seniors Casie Mota (19:11) and Jasmine
Collins (19:16), who were 25th and 28th.
Guggiana's mark was 1:05 faster than her Mt. SAC mark at last year's Southern
Section Division I preliminaries when she was slowed after having to weave
her way through an ongoing boys race in her path and walked up the final
hill.
"My mind was shot and I had to stop," Guggiana said. "It
was awful, but I told myself I was never going to walk again even if I
was hurt. I worried about it all last night."
So was breaking the news of the accident to her mother Shari, who had
made sure her daughter drank plenty of fluids and went to bed early every
night last week in preparation for the race.
Guggiana's brothers solved the problem after telling their mother when
they saw Robyn being interviewed by police on their way home from the
market.
"Before I could say anything, it was `Guess what, Robyn was in an
accident,"' Guggiana said.
The emergence of Warren has been no accident. The Bears have won the last
three San Gabriel Valley League titles but have yet to advance to the
section championships. This fall, Warren has been ranked among the top
10 in Southern Section Division I for the majority of the season. The
section finals will be held at Mt. SAC on Nov. 22.
"This course is very mental," Guggiana said. "I would rather
do better here than anywhere else. Anybody can do good on a flat course.
To me, it's the grand finale of everything.''[ep
Poly was eighth in the individual sweepstakes, buoyed by sophomore Tava
Tedasco (19:45) and junior Gabrielle Bournes (19:52) in 31st and 33rd.
In the boys' competition, St. John Bosco was eighth in the team sweepstakes,
led by junior Randy Skillens (15:28) in 12th and senior Luis Uribe (15:48)
in 28th. Lakewood was third in the individual sweepstakes behind sophomore
Daniel Clifford (15:40) in 18th.
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