New course recordholders Christine Babcock
of Woodbridge and Chad Hall of Big Bear.
Babcock was timed in 16:31 to snip four seconds off 15-time NCAA All-American
Lauren
Fleshman's mark and Hal clocked a stunning 14:00 to shave 13 seconds
from Diego Mercado's
one-year-old course record. The team-time records for boys and girls
were also shattered.
- Royal
Boys 73:49 team-time course record (14:44 avg!)
- Chad Hall (Big Bear) 14:00
boys' course record!!!
- Saugus Girls 87:09 team-time
course record (17:26 avg!)
- Christine Babcock (Woodbridge)
16:31 girls' course record!
- Mac Fleet (University City)
14:47 sophomore course record!
By Rich Gonzalez
Editor, DyeStatCal.com
IRVINE
-- Records are made to be broken. But this was downright ridiculous.
Buoyed by absolutely perfect weather
conditions and cheers from the largest crowd in its night-meet history,
Saturday evening's featured races at the 26th annual Woodbridge Invitational
left the fans amazed, the historians shocked, and the slew of record
setters smiling from ear to ear.
Both the boys' and girls'
individual course records fell, with the all-time team-time standards
in each gender blown out of the water as well. All indications were
that California would be in for a historic year of performances in both
genders and these meet results stoicly validated the notion. With nine
boys teams clocking under 77 minutes and 11 girls teams bettering 92
minutes, this was easily the deepest collection of quality in an invitational
in state history. By comparison, only two boys teams and three girls
teams turned the feat last year. Unlike the chilly temperatures and
pesky winds which greeted runners in previous years, race-time thermometer
readings leveled off in the mid-60s and the wind was calm.
"This wasn't
expected at all. I was thinking of going for the meet record, but nothing
this fast entered my mind," said Big Bear High senior Chad Hall,
who dropped two-time defending state 3200m champion Michael Cybulski
with relative ease at the two-mile mark and torched the rest of the
flat three-mile layout en route to an amazing 14:00 course record clocking
to win by 24 seconds over Cybulski in the meet's nighttime finale. Bonita
Vista senior Eric Avila, who enjoyed a monstrous breakthrough here,
placed third in a huge lifetime best of 14:25.
To put Hall's performance into
perspective, he smashed the previous mark of 14:13 set last year by
West Covina High's Diego Mercado. Mercado went on to set the Mt. SAC
course record of 14:24 on that hilly 2.91-mile course five weeks later.
"I really didn't have any specific
plan, just see how the race played out and then make a move when it
felt right," added Hall, who finished a distant second to Northern
California's German Fernandez at last year's Division IV state meet
after posting a few great performances earlier in the year. "My
big goal this year is to run better at the end of the season, unlike
past years."
Photo by Bill Leung
From left to right, Upland's
Ryan Gamboa (#2791), Bonita Vista's Eric Avila (#1541), Royal's
Michael Cybulski (#1365) and Big Bear's Chad Hall (#9682) were 14:30
or faster on Saturday.
Hall, who along with Cybulski and
literally dozens of others came out to a very reserved pace at the start
of the race, picked up the tempo late in the first mile and came across
the first marker in about 4:42 (Mercado was at 4:38 in last year's record-setting
win) as the field slowly started to thin out. By two miles, Hall and
Cybulski came across at 9:21 and had built a small gap on the rest of
the 24-team, 183-runner starting field. It was then that Hall shifted
gears with sheer authority.
"He looked real good when
he made his move. I couldn't go with it," conceded Cybulski, who
was gapped by an amazing 24 seconds by Hall during that last mile. "He
looked okay through at two miles, but then just took off and pulled
away."
Although Cybulski lost the first
anticipated showdown of 2006 between the two biggest boys names on the
statewide scene, he could take solace in the fact his Highlanders appeared
stronger than ever while shearing a stunning 76 seconds off their own
team-time record set last year by racing to a cumulative clocking of
73:49 for its five scorers, an unheard of average of 14:44 per runner
for any three-mile layout.
Royal coach Ryan
Luce singled out #5 returnee Alex Routh as a real key to the team's
effort as he finished third in the team order in a stunning lifetime-best
14:52. Routh ran 16:08 at Woodbridge last year, his previous best three-mile
time of his career entering Saturday night.
"A huge step-up," Luce quipped.
"We're talking major."
Royal gapped just 34 seconds for its five scorers, with Cybulski (14:24),
Hudson Andrews (14:39), Routh, Daniel Benson (14:56), and Jun Reichl
(14:58) all achieving lifetime bests.
The Highlanders, ranked second in the
nation by The Harrier magazine, were so extraordinary in scoring 74
points, their feats overshadowed a bevvy of sensational performances
by others appearing up and down the results sheet.
Trabuco Hills, which moved up to
#4 in the latest Nike Team Nationals California Region rankings after
upsetting previous #4 Upland the previous weekend, scored 124 points
to knock off # 10 Arcadia (a big surprise in third with 162 points)
and #3 El Toro (fourth here with 168 points. A very interesting detail
with El Toro's finish was that frontrunner Abdow Haji placed only sixth
among Charger finishers in the race according to the results. Had he
merely finished directly behind El Toro's eventual #2 finisher, the
Chargers would have placed a comfortable second and been within 13 points
of Royal.
Trabuco Hills, laying claim to
among the top 1-2-3 punches in the nation, had the trio of JT Sullivan
(4th in 14:26), Scott Blair (6th in 14:35) and Riley Sullivan (7th in
14:35) lead their 74:48 effort, which joined Royal in eclipsing the
team-time record.
Arcadia, which had a magical program
breakthrough in 2005, had all five scorers dip under 15:20, led by senior
Andrew Pilavjian's 12th-place finish in 14:45. As proud as Apaches coach
Jim O'Brien was of his varsity's team's showing, he was equally pleased
with the fact the cumulative team placing from all three levels (varsity,
junior varsity, and frosh/soph) ranked first from among the 100-plus
boys programs in the meet.
Upland and Madera, two of the three
remaining NTN-ranked teams in the field, placed 5th (197 points) and
6th (234 points), respectively. Upland was keyed by senior Ryan Gamboa's
5th-place individual finish while Madera was paced by junior Isai Orea
(35th). Big Bear, which was the #6 team in the NTN California Region
rankings, finished a distant 12th with 325 points. It appears, however,
that the Bears were without one key scorer who, if he finishes in his
usual order on the team, would have likely helped steer the squad to
a 7th-place team finish -- behind six NTN-ranked teams.
Another boys record falling
by the wayside was the sophomore class standard, previously held by
Woodbridge High alum Michael Haddan, an All Pac-Ten Conference performer
now at UCLA. University City of San Diego 10th-grader Mac Fleet placed
15th in the sweepstakes race while clocking 14:47, which snipped 8 seconds
off Haddan's mark. Crescenta Valley sophomore Zack Torres also bettered
the mark with his 23rd-place finish in 14:54. Torres is also a nifty
baseball player for the Falcons, with his dad (Phil Torres) the coach
of the highly successful baseball program. As DyeStatCal co-editor Doug
Speck wryly kidded while noting Zack's performance: "Hide his (baseball)
glove."
Although host Woodbridge
lost Haddan's meet record, it picked up another as junior Christine
Babcock wore down her chief rivals to win in a course record 16:31,
with Buchanan senior Lauren Saylor in second at 16:35, matching the
previous mark set by Canyon High of Canyon Country alum Lauren Fleshman,
who set the mark in 1998. Fleshman went on to become a 15-time NCAA
All-American and is the reigning American champion at 5,000 meters in
track and field.
"She's special, the
real deal," said smiling Warriors coach and meet director George
Varvas to no one in particular as he made his from the girls' finish
chute area to the start of the final boys' race. As Babcock made the
final turn and raced toward the chute to elicit a loud cheer from the
hometown crowd, Varvas and other members of his staff in near unison
raised their fists to the sky in celebration once it became apparent
she was going to break the record.
"She was different today,"
Woodbridge assistant coach Stu Venook said afterward. "She was
all business before the race. Real serious. I'd never seen her that
way before."
Babcock, the
reigning state 1600m champion, was out quickly in the opening mile,
with Mira Costa's Kevyn Murphy working hard to match the pace. But approaching
the mile, Babcock had opened a 15-yard cushion that forced Murphy to
begin laboring as she tried to keep up. Babcock retained the lead as
she returned through the main grass field where most of the crowd had
lined up, with the team battle taking shape behind her.
Eventually, however, Buchanan
senior Lauren Saylor forged a nice dent into Babcock's lead and eventually
drew within several strides of her. Saylor maintained her position to
place second while Glendora senior Christy Adamyk took third in 16:40.
Murphy, undoubtedly wearied from challenging Babcock in the early stages,
placed 14th. Saugus senior Shannon Murakami was 4th in 16:51 while her
freshman sibling Amber was 6th in 17:06.
Saugus, our pre-race girls
team favorite when asked by those around us in the days and hours leading
up to the meet, did not disappoint our faith as the Centurions (ranked
4th in this week's NTN California Region poll) boasted 4 of the first
21 finishers on its way to chalking up 69 points, well ahead of fine
performances from runner-up NTN Ca #2 Buchanan (120) and third-place
Ayala (129), ranked 8th in this week's NTN California Region poll. Saugus'
87:09 team-time clocking obliterated the meet record by an amazing 80
seconds as the Murakamis were joined by Katherine Dunn (17:19), Brianna
Jauregui (17:36) and Keri Molt (18:17) on the team-time tally.
One very interesting observation
was gleaned from examining the results of the Varsity Girls Division
I race earlier in the evening, where NTN CA Region #5 Fountain Valley
won handily. Inserting the Barons' times from their race into the Sweepstakes
race yields what would have been a second-place team finish for them.
What makes this feat even more shocking is the fact its showing closed
out a grueling week of training. This was Fountain Valley's FOURTH RACE
IN FIVE DAYS and closed out a 75-mile training week for its varsity
members. Barons coach Bary Migliorini, who is a strong advocate of racing
several times in the opening weeks to sharpen racing skills, was pleasantly
surprised by his team's showing given the recent scheduling circumstances.
Three other NTN-ranked girls
teams were in the meet, included two in the sweepstakes race. Crescenta
Valley, ranked 6th in the California Region, beat South Lake Tahoe,
the #8 team in the NTN Southwest Region, via a 6th-runner tiebreaker.
Thomas Jefferson of Washington, ranked 10th in the NTN Northwest Region,
split up its team members across various races and placed 13th overall
by team time.
One other notable development
was that Esperanza High of Orange County reportedly rested out its top
three runners. Considering it placed 14th overall by team time while
vastly shorthanded, the Aztecs join Fountain Valley, Edison (8th in
sweepstakes) and Newport Harbor (9th in sweepstakes) in helping comprise
perhaps the deepest league (Sunset League) in the entire nation in 2006.
With a full Esperanza lineup, all four teams would break 92 minutes
on a flat 3-mile course (three did this weekend).
The course was slightly
altered near the start area this year, allowing the field of runners
a wider-sweeping turn onto the school track less than a minute into
the race. This added distance was offset by eliminating that same distance
when the course traversed into the adjacent city park. Although Cybulski
said before the race that he GPSed the distance earlier in the day as
being slightly longer than last year and just over three miles, meet
officials wheeled and GPSed the distance before the meet to be right
at three miles.
By evening's end, the
midnight blue sky was full of silver linings, all with record connotations.
A few of the sport's longtime aficionados huddled here and there along
the Woodbridge High campus, each exchanging views on the record onslaught.
In each case, the superlatives were lobbed and the amazement was shared.
Would we ever see such a plethora of history again in one place at one
time? Based on the rising trend of performances both here in California
and across the national landscape in recent years, you can bet we will.
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