Mt. SAC History - 1990 Invite

Lookin' Back-Marching through the Decades!!

The 1990 Mt. SAC Invite was another great one!  Louie Quintana (Arroyo Grande) would end up the nation's best as Kinney National Champion in the sport, with Dave Hartman (Canyon, Canyon Country) third there!! Both are now NCAA level coaches, with Louie at Arizona State and Dave at the University of Georgia, both with fine squads!!
Louie Quintana at Arizona State
Dave Hartman at Georgia

On the Girls' side, Deena Drossin (Agoura) Athens Olympic marathon medalist, would end up sixth in the Kinney National series after a super Mt. SAC run described below, with Jeannie Rothman an impressive second in that national finals run behind Melody Fairchild of Colorado's amazing 59 second win in that national finals contest! 

Great Mt. SAC Meet in 1990 - read on!!!

Fun to take a glance backwards sometimes!!!
Doug Speck

Mt. SAC Invitational - 1990
October 19-20 - Walnut

One of the highlights of the Fall harrier season, the Mt. SAC Invitational was held on the challenging Community College three mile course Friday and Saturday. They came from far and wide once again to test themselves as individuals and teams with, once again, most fo the state’s top runners including this as a must on their schedule. Some great match-ups were set up in the smaller school action on Friday, with the bigger schools running on Saturday.

Interesting outside of area teams Monument Valley (Arizona) on the Girls’ side and Bret Harte (Altaville) on the Boys’ side wold come in Friday to test the locals. Moument Valley is the top-ranked Girls team in Arizona and ranked within the top twenty nationally, so it would be assumed they would do some real damage here. In a Girls race of very small school schools (around 50 or less sutdents) the Arizonans scored 33 points and a 100:30 team time for the quickest of the day. A good San marino squad had 100;38 in taking the over 500 student Girls Sweeps from Friday, led by Marjor Hsu (18;51) and Jennie Liao (19;42). Maribella Aparicio (Fillmore) was the winner there at 18:29. On the Boys’ side, San Marino was also the winners, with the 1100 student school certainly a power to be contended with statewide this Fall. The Boys totalled 80 points and 83:49, with Peter Nichols (16:09 5th) leading the team, and another top runner, Carlos DeOvando, not even racing this day. Bret Harte (Altaville) took the battle of State Division IV schools with a second to San Marino at 108 (84:23). Jorge Barajas was second in the race for Fillmore at 15:57, with Robert Walker (San Pasqual, Escondido), who for religious reasons could not race with his team on Saturday, the winner in that race at an impressive 15:41. Maranatha (Sierra Madre) looked good in a under 500 student boys Sweeps race, totalling 54 points (84:27 team time) to take Monument Valley (65 85:01). The competition in Division IV statewide is of very high quality with Fillmore, Maranatha, Bret Harte, and other very strong programs.

Saturday’s action centered around the four Sweepstakes Races, an Individual and Team for both Boys and Girls, with the first set up for teams with an outstanding athlete or two, and the Team Sweeps a real bloodbath that may be the toughest team battle within the state each year as squads cross between Section and State enrollment borders.

The Boys Team Sweepstakes, featuring highly ranked squads nationally in Madera, Hart (Newhall), Saddleback (Santa Ana), and Arroyo Grande, with the out of area team a very highly thought of group from Page, Arizona. The race included the nation’s best prep male runner. Louie Quintana (Arroyo Grande), who would mix it up with a top group. Madera had won big at Clovis and Stanford, with the Coyotes a very tough pack. Louie would have none of the first in the individual race early on, blasting out at 2:11 for the flat first half mile, and having a fifty yard lead at 4:32 for the mile, with Dave Hartman (Canyon, Canyon Country), Dan Niednagel (Dana Hills), Javier Lozano (Helix, La Mesa), and Bob Ryser (Carson City, NV) back at 4:40 at that point. The Page squad had McArthur Lane and Theodore Martin up in the top eight, with the black-clad Arizona team looking strong as the race headed up the switchbacks. The blue-clad Madera group had a pack that was between places 15 and 35 through the mile. Up the switchbacks Quintana continued to power, with Hartman breaking away from the pack and the Arizona duo of Lane and Martin moving up to third and fourth. After the run up and down the switchbacks, Quintana emerged onto the flat “Airstrip” portion of the course with a 60 yard lead over Hartman. Lane and Martin held thrid and fourth still for Page, but Madera had gathered up by the mile and started its team surge up over the switchback loop, following Jose Santiago, who had edged into the top dozen, with an athlete every place or two after that through about thirtieth. Page did not have the depth to deal with Madera today. Quintana crested the top of the last very tough hill, Reservoir Hill, at right about 12:30 with a 70 yard lead over Hartman. Down on to the airstrip Quintana continued to fly, maintaining a 60 yard lead on into the finish over Hartman, with Louie clocking an amazing 14;40 (#5 time ever here) and Hartman 14:51 (#7 clocking ever at Mt. SAC). Bob Ryser of Carson City edged the rest of the pack in third at 15:20. The Madera flood started with Jose Santiago in eleventh at 15;45 and continued through 26th place for its five scorers, totalling 96 points and an excellent 79:41 team time. Hart (161 81:15) and Saddleback (168 81:39) also came in ahead of Page (175-81:14). The Page athletes later said that the traffic in the actual race was something they were not used to, with their fifth athlete back at the start never really being able to work his way up during the race. With the Page team scoring 25 to 35 points to win most of its meets in Arizona, this would be the kind of a race that would be a heck of a shock, with the first fifty in the event finishing in what would be the equivalent of at least at 15:45 3 mile on the flat!

The Boys Individual Sweeps was led by early by James Menon (San Luis Obispo), an 8:59 3200 runner from track. Todd Tressler (San Marcos, Santa Barbara), the Lakewood duo of T.J. Reyes and Paul Martineau, and James O’Connor (Chino). Menon was followed closely by Tressler at 4:45 at the mile, with the San Luis Obispo star stretching a small lead to 15 years over Todd as they came off the switchbacks loop, with James Pendergraph (Norte Vista, Riverside) and Steve Gonzalez (Carson) close. Menon led by five seconds over the top of Reservoir Hill, with the margin exactly the same over the downhill and flat next half mile to the finish, with James running 15:28 and Tressler 15;33. SLO also took the team battle, scoring 109 (83:02) bolstered by Adavn Divergillo’s 6th palce 15:52.

The Girls Individual Sweeps featured a dynamite group. Ina large pack, Martha Pinto (Katella, Anaheim), Miesha Marzell (Reed, Sparks, Nv), Milena Glusac (Fallbrook), Jeannie Rothman (Westlake, Westl Village), Shelley Taylor (Edison, Huntington Beach), Tanya Brix (University, Irvine), and Heather Killeen (Valencia, Placentia) broke away right from the start. Rothman pushed the pace through the mile at 5:22, but it was Martha Pinto who took the lead on the Switchback loop and came off those hills with about a 30 yard lead over Taylor and Rothman. Taylor, Rothman, and Pinto were abreast by the top of the very steep “poop-out” hill just before two miles. On the rolling half-mile behind poop-out and Reservoir Hills Rothman really jammed on the accelerator, powering to a 50 yeard lead by the top of Reservoir Hill (2.5 miles) and putting the race away. Held back slightly with health problems early in the season, Jeannie was obviously at full strength here, blasting in to the finish at 17:25, the equal #3 clocking ever on the course. Taylor finished in an excellent 17:37 (#4 11th grader ever), with Pinto 17;44 and Glusac (Fallbrook) 17;45 (#4 soph ever). Edison took the team contest, scoring 105 and 102:23 for a team time.

The Girls Team Sweeps had nationally ranked Agoura, Mt. Carmel (San Diego - fresh rom a win at the Eastern States Championship at Van Cortlandt Park in New York City), and Arroyo Grnade, another conqueror of the best of the east at the University of Virginia Invite in late September. Deena Drossin (Agoura), one of the nation’s best, took the race out, with Lucinda Reyes (Lakewood) leading the following pack. Mt. Carmel, easy to pick out in solid red uniforms, was definitely ahead of Agoura through the 1320, with Drossin holding a 20 yard lead over Reyes, who in turn was 30 yards ahead of Erica Sumi (Wilson, Long Beach), with the firast mile at just under 5:20. Susan Scott led the Mt. Carmel charge in 6th at that point, with Tiffany York of Agoura in about tenth followed by the San Diego group’s next four scorers all within the top twenty, still definitely ahead of Agoura’s team grouping. Off the switchbacks Drossin had a huge 40 second lead, with surprising Veronica Barajas (Channel Islands, Oxnard), Sumi, and Larua Monson (Claremont) next. Tiffany York of Agoura was right behind Scott of Mt. Carmel as they started the last mile, with Kristie Camp leading an Agoura charge moving up through the Mt. Carmel team. The team contest had not been decided at two miles. Drossin continued to power, making the turn onto the flat final 440 yards on the airstrip at just under 16:00, appearing to give her a shot at the 17:16 Course Record by Kirsten O’Hara (Palos Verdes) from 1983. As the rest of the race fed down onto the airstrip from Reservoir Hill it was obvious that Agoura had raced a very solid third mile, having four inside of Mt. Carmel’s second runner by the finish. Drossin crossed the line in a breathtaking 17:16, equalling the Course Record, with her Charger teammates totalling 61 Points (94:29), with Mt. Carmel second at 91 (97:39), and Arroyo Grande next at 131 (98;39).

Veronica Barajas (Channel Islands, Oxnard), a Marmonte League-mate of Drossin and Rothman, was second individually at 18:02, with Erica Sumi third at 18;31. In Mt. Carmel’s defense, the squad was still a bit wiped out from a four day trip to new York the previous weekend, a period during which they squashed the best in the east in the rain and mud of the Manhattan College Invitational at famed Van Cortlandt Park.