Weekend Summary #2 - Week Two
August 27-September 1st, 2007
Doug Speck - DyeStatCal Editor

PACK ATTACK
It is all about a 1-5 team situation in our sport and this past weekend showed some fine squads at the upper end of multi-school events who are emphasizing the “group scene.” momentum that a good program has is very impressive to watch.  With all the work that is put in by all the squads in this sport it is fun to see that “magic” caught by the members of a special team as it moves as a group towards the front of the race.

   
CLOVIS EAST had its Boys’ group travel up to the heat-shortened Granite Bay Invitational and the veteran Central Section squad that finished third last year in its area Division I Finals and did not even move into the State Meet at Woodward Park scored an amazing 15 points behind individual winner NOE CRUZ (above left). 4:32 1600 star TOMAS EVANGELISTA of Placer led the rest of the field in 6th place, with the CE squad certainly in the State meet picture this go-round.

WOODCREEK (above) had a highly rated Boys Division II squad statewide, with the team’s first showing at the Nevada Twilight Classic much anticipated. The light jersied (with a dark “W”) group packed right near the front, with the expected crew of GARRETT SEAWELL, CHRIS ROMO, CAMERON MITCHELL, AND RAJA HANDA joined by a fifth runner, who turned out to be TAYLOR NEWMAN. After finishing in about every other place through tenth in a respectable Boys field in Reno, it was clear the ‘creek had dominated. HANDA later was dq’d along with another top ten finisher as the first year night course claimed a casualty goin’ round the cones, but the Woodcreek team was still strong enough to take the title 49-51 over Galena of Nevada.

PETALUMA had its highly ranked Boys Div II Boys’ group take an impressive five of the ten top spots in the Panther Preview Invite at Spring Lake in Santa Rosa this past weekend, scoring 24 points and averaging a nice 16:11. With four underclass in the squad’s top five and continued improvement they can be among the NCS’s all-time great teams before this group is through next year.

MARIA CARRILLO (Santa Rosa) had its girls team gap a nice 19 seconds 1-4 behind team leader JORDAN DAVIS (7th 19:57) at the Panther Preview to lead them to their win there, with the Pumas coming out nicely as they attempt to wrest the NCS Div III title from 2006 champion Campolindo and a talented group of squads.

BIG DUAL OF THE WEEK

Nice to see when the top programs pull off the gloves early and are willing to test themselves against each other as JESUIT and DAVIS High Schools did this past weekend at William Jessup University and see where things are at. These are sophisticated programs where the results in November, should general health remain steady, could reflect significant improvement by both teams with possibly a different result. Take the time to visit the school’s web-sites in the sport (Jesuit - Davis) and one has the sense that not too many details are left out of the programs of Jesuit Coach WALT LANGE or Davis Coach BILL GREGG.
Anyway, round 1 went to Jesuit 27-32, with both squads at the Division I level in their section off initial CBED listings, as Jesuit overcame the 1-3-5 finishes of Davis stars KENNY DURELL (17:10), COREY COATES (17:37), and MATT PETERSEN (17:47) with a wicked pack behind second and fourth placers KYLE LACKNER (17:21) and GIO PICCONE (17:41). Soph ADAM KELLY-STRONG, a 2:03 frosh 800 runner last spring, in this meet led a pack after his sixth place (17:48) that included senior COLIN CHAPMAN (18:00) and frosh TJ BROWN PINIZZOTTO (18:13), with the latter running a CR frosh record in the late August team time trial some five seconds better than KELLY-STRONG record set for ninth graders a year ago. The beat goes on for Jesuit with a number of others who seem to have marked steady improvement in the last year since 2006 Cross Country.

KEEPING AN EYE OUT FOR THE SMALL SCHOOL FOLKS

With competition among athletes of all sizes in many meets, those at the Smaller School Division IV and Division V level schools often have trouble in the “team headline” areas in those competitions, but there are some individuals who can hold their own with anybody.

South Fork’s HANK CARL came over from his Miranda area of the NCS and along with third placer MICHAEL RADENBAUGH from his school went 1-3 in the Siskiyou Warm-up which included mostly smaller school folks from the Northern Section on Friday. CARL was second in the NCS Div V contest last Fall in Cross Country and tenth individually at State, with a 9:49 spring 3200 best. RADENBAUGH was 2:00.53 in the spring for 800 meters.

ZACH NAVE from Division V school Santa Rosa Christian (NCS) was seventh in the Panther Preview Boys Varsity run at 16:29 at Spring Lake in Santa Rosa, with the 2006 NCS 8th placer who went on to 27th at the 2006 State Meet at his level showing good conditioning early on.

ZACH CHELLMAN (Sage Ridge, Nevada) - Going out of the state for this one, with the Nevada State 1A/2A one athlete I was interested in seeing in Nevada at the Twilight Classic after reading about his quarduple in last May’s State Track meet, which included 1A/2A level wins at 800 (1:59)-1600 (4:24) and 3200 meters (9:57) with a fourth place in the 400 meters thrown in for good measure! With an enrollment of 141 students in grades 5-12 we guess one needs to spread themselves out a bit. At the Reno Twilight Classic this past weekend CHELLMAN charged out with the leaders, and raced to a third place finish overall at 13:41 for the 4k distance, the second Nevadan behind race winner BRYAN TIBADUIZA from Galena, who was 13:27.

PERSONAL STORY OF THE WEEK


Nevada, again, and hopefully you took the time to link on the two stories (Story 1 - Story 2) about South Lake Tahoe HS senior star KATE LAMBDIN, with hers one of the families in the Tahoe area who it turns out lost their house in the late June Angora fire in that region of the state. Lambdin was second in the Nevada Twilight Classic last Friday, with one only imagining what the family has been through during the summer months with a picture in the first story linked above appearing to show nothing other than the foundation of the house still on the property. When one hears that they learned of the fate of their house while at a local Community College evacuation site you cannot believe that they were able to save much from the residence before it burned. LAMBDIN and her champion Nevada Twilight Classic squad will be in Southern California at the Woodbridge Invitational in a couple of weekends.

RUNNING WITH THE PRO’S (WELL ALMOST COLLEGE/HIGH SCHOOL)

 
A neat feature of the Nevada Twilight Classic this past weekend was a weaving of High School and Collegiate level races during an evening of fine running in Reno. With full weekends and the rest of life putting some limits on what one can take in, we sure lose track of a lot of the next level, with the Reno affair a great chance to see how some of the Golden State HS grads were doing at the next level. While the College coaches are very, very careful at the start of the season, with a large number of athletes held out of this first competition, still it was fun to view folks not too long ago at our level moving up to the next, where they kind of go to the bottom of the class as freshmen all over again their first year and a number making continued significant improvement at the longer college racing distances. UCLA was 23rd in the NCAA Championships on the Men’s side last year, and with all those runners plus a great recruiting class in, with Bruin vets DREW SHACKLETON from Carlmont second and JAKE MATTHEWS (Folsom HS) fifth here, and former LB Poly star Ulices Pina sixth for UC Riverside and Jimmy Elam of Sierra (Manteca) next for Humboldt State. On the Women’s side, Bloomington HS athlete CHRISTINA OLIVAS has improved mightily, winning at Reno on a strong sprint over former Escalon Sac Joaquin area star, AMANDA MORENO, now at Nevada/Reno, with Rancho Cucamonga’s BRENDA MARTINEZ next for UCR and some impressive improvement for Woodcrest Christian’s ASHLEIGH PRATT of UCR, fourth, as the Riverside crew totalled 21 points for their win.

WHEN THEY ALL GET OUT ON THE COURSE
For a variety of reasons teams are without some bodies at the start of the season, but it is nice to see the second string step up or run well enough as a reduced sized team to leave one rubbing their hands together in anticipation when everyone does move out on to the course.

 
MT SHASTA GIRLS - The traditional powerhouse is without someone in the program named Fritzke for the first time in a few years, but at the Siskiyou Warm-Up meet last weekend the squad went 1-2 with veterans NATALIE SOJKA (15:52 2.4 mi) and CYNTHIA LAIACONA (16:59). Newcomer HANNAH GROVER (17:55) and CARY ROGERS (18:27) from last year’s team should join up with JOANNA BEEM and MAGGIE STRONG, both sub 20 minute performers at Woodward Park on the State Meet 5k course to make a great Division V squad for the Fall.

UNIQUE AWARDS
At the Nike Team Nationals they give awards for team members back in the pack who provide special depth for their squads. At the recent Toro Team Builder competition there were awards in the different races for the top times for those of the 6th and 7th team finishers added together. Also, there were awards for the first through fifth runner team spread. We have seen awards given to runners who improve the most from last year in a meet to the same meet this year, with we are sure a variety of others that might be interesting to hear about.

HOT, HOT, HOT!!

The temperature always seems to crank up around the time of official practices start and then this past opening weekend it seemed particularly toasty with races shortened in distance and some schools deciding to not even race due to the conditions. Coach Kirk Elias at the University of Nevada, Reno deserves innovative credit for carting in the lights and picking the last weekend in August to not fight the elements and do it in the evening, with his initial Nevada Twilight Classic run under great conditions. To finish all the races in a decent sized invitational by 10:00 a.m., which I kind of remember is the magical hour where the temperature starts to skyrocket, is tough to do. As the weeks roll along and more and more schools attend the multi-school contests it is sure hoped that the weather Gods shine down and lower the thermometer a bit. A quick glance at weather.com for all but the “right on the ocean” sites statewide typically shows weather up into the 90's (at least) for another week and a half, which includes this coming weekend. Good luck and plan ahead.

(Thanks to correspondents Joe Hartman - George Green - Dave Gregson -
Co-Editor Rich Gonzalez, and others around state for info included herein
photos - Kristine Martinez - Joe Hartman - Doug Speck - Jeremy Yokogawa -
Rich Gonzalez)

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