It's no longer just the Royal treatment
Highlanders race well, but have red-hot Trabuco Hills
breathing down their necks
13,901 finishers across 96 HS
races comprise nation's largest meet in 2006
By Rich Gonzalez
DyeStat/DyeStatCal
WALNUT
-- Make no mistake about it, Royal boys... the heat is on.
With Royal's continual interchange at
the 3-4-5 scoring positions and a difficulty in having all five runners
click at once, a red-hot Trabuco Hills crew is closing the gap. And
doing it quickly.
In only their second meeting of
the year, Royal successfuly defeated the rival Mustangs for a second
time, but not so easily as before. Five weeks ago, the Highlanders topped
Trabuco Hills by 51 points and 37 seconds on a flat and fast three miler
at the Woodbridge Invitational. On Saturday, the cushion shrank to 18
points and 24 seconds while in a stronger field and along a more challenging
2.91-mile layout at the 59th annual Mt. SAC Invitational.
More importantly, Trabuco Hills
has sheared away the entire gap at position #1 and was faster than Royal
at #2, #3, and #4. All that remains is shoring up the sizeable deficit
at the crucial fifth scoring position.
Royal prevailed on Saturday by
a 95-113 count in the featured Boys SuperSweepstakes Race, which brought
together mostly national-class teams and individuals in a new quirk
for the longstanding meet. Royal's 77:12 ranked as fourth-fastest in
course history -- and third-fastest since renovations in 1999 made the
course faster. Trabuco Hills' 77:36 was eighth fastest in course history
and an Orange County record, a week after setting a course record on
the Orange County Championships' Irvine Park course. Central California
power Madera ran its best race this season to claim third with 129,
well ahead of El Toro (150) and Arcadia (151).
"We've just been up and down. everybody's
been changing positions," Royal coach Ryan Luce said. "We
haven't found the right chemistry yet, but for us obviously, it's about
the end of the year and generally we've been pretty good with that (stage).
So hopefully we just keeping working hard as a team and do what we've
done in the past. I think one thing that helps us out from here is now
after league finals it's one race a week and we're able to train
like we really want to and that's where we really get going on all cylinders."
The Trabuco Hills engine has been
revving strongly for several weeks now, with senior team leader J.T.Sullivan
crediting a small spike in summertime mileage as the catalyst for improved
fitness levels. The Mustangs had four runners in the top 20, including
#4 Chris Mosier (15:26), who had never before cracked under 16:00 on
the Mt. SAC course. What helped Royal counter that to some extent was
having senior Danny Benson place 18th in 15:25, a huge lifetime PR on
the championship course.
"I just wanted to get out
fast and see what I could do," said Benson. "I'm not really
much of a frontrunner, but I wanted top try something new today. I knew
where I was on the team and I felt good, so jsut went after it. I surprised
myself a little bit with my time."
All told, single-day Mt. SAC course
records were either matched or broken for most boys teams under 78:00
(two teams), under 79:00 (five), under 80:00 (11) and under 80:30 (18).
The previous record for sub-80:30 was 12, achieved under ideal weather
conditions (mid-60s) during the sweepstakes portion of last year's invitational.
This year, runners were confronted by temperatures in the mid-70's during
the featured portion of the meet, although readings soared into the
upper 80s during the heart of Saturday's meet schedule.
"It's getting scary,"
Royal coach Ryan Luce recently said. "Teams are running crazy fast...
Woodbridge, Stanford, Clovis -- all kinds of teams are running faster
now than we were when we won state for the first time two years ago.
Is this happening elsewhere too?"
Yes it is. The bar continues to
be raised. Kids are cranking it up all over the map!
=========================================
Chad Hall Michael Cybulski
Matt Tebo
Individually, the leading boys
highlights of the day also occurred in the SuperSweeps Division, where
Big Bear's Chad Hall eased away from Royal's Cybulski on the final descent
to win going away, 14:35 to 14:45. It was Hall's second triumph over
Cybulski in as many head-to-head outings.
New Mexico's Matt Tebo, the top-rated
runner in the nation in Steve Underwood's countrywide listing,
had trouble coping with the leading Californians here, settling for
third in 14:54. Trabuco Hills' J.T. Sullivan, one of the hottest runners
on the West Coast over the last six weeks, was fourth in 14:58, with
La Sierra senior Spencer Knight rounding out the "Sub-15:00 Club"
with a very fine 14:59 clocking.
Hall, who entered here as the favorite
after a spectacular final mile surge in winning the Woodbridge Invitational
five weeks ago, found the opening pace almost pedestrian in relation
to his liking. Bonita Vista's Eric Avila led a large pack hitting the
mile marker in 4:42.
"I was actually hoping
that they were going to take it (fast) through about two miles
and I would make my move there, but everybody was kind of sitting on
me except for Eric Avila," said Hall. "I just decided to take
it coming (off Poop-Out Hill)... I thought for sure someone was going
to take it out real fast, just because of the field. It was pretty amazing."
Hall admitted the course record
was in the back of his mind, but a combination of factors prevented
a serious challenge to it.
"After Poop-Out, I was really
feeling it, the heat especially," added Hall. "I had a feeling
the time wasn't going to be as good as I wanted it at that point. Just
runnnig alone, the heat, and my legs were real tired by then."
Regardless, Hall found value in
coming out of his training regimen to race the big boys at Mt. SAC:
"When I heard Tebo was going to be in it, I wanted to come and
get a race on with him. It was definitely good to get to race him before
nationals and see how he likes to run and stuff. I'm probably
not going to run all out again until state. Although at CIF Finals.
I might go after (the record)."
Cybulski, who took third at Stanford
in addition to his earlier loss to Hall at Woodbridge, ran his second
consecutive strong race. First came his impressive 5k win on the state
meet course (15:03) two weeks ago, and then a Mt. SAC lifetime best
this weekend.
"Avila took it out really
fast and the same with the guy from El Rancho (Luis Guevara) and they
were kind of pushing the pace at the beginning, so I felt comfortable
sitting right there with that pace," said the two-time defending
state 3200m champion "I really didn't want to go 4:35 or anything
like that the first mile. More like 4:40, maybe 4:45 for that first
mile. I was just waiting for Hall and Tebo to make a move and then just
go and follow right with them."
Given the fact Hall was so dominant
in the final mile at Woodbridge, it was a bit surprising to see Cybulski
and anyone else in the field with hopes of winning to be content in
letting Hall hang around untested as thje final mile approached..
"My plan was to relax on the
Switchbacks and kind of stay with them and make my move at Poop-Out.
But when I got there, Chad was a little too far ahead. So I has to wait
for Reservoir Hill. ... Going up Reservoir, I caught him. But then on
the downhill, I kind of fell off right there."
When asked about Royal's inability
to "click" on all cylinders as a group of runners, Cybulski
just smiled and shot back: "(At the) end of the season."
Official
Race Splits for the Leaders in Saturday's Sweepstakes Races
(by Mike Kennedy) |
Division |
One
Mile |
Cross-Over |
Two-Mile |
Reservoir
Hill |
Finish |
Outcome |
Boys SuperSweeps |
4:42 |
7:53 |
9:53 |
12:23 |
14:35 |
Won by Chad Hall |
Boys Team Sweeps |
4:47 |
8:04 |
10:06 |
12:40 |
15:02 |
Won by Kent Morikawa |
Boys Individual Sweeps |
4:47 |
8:16 |
10:17 |
12:56 |
15:14 |
Won by Diego Estrada |
Girls Team Sweeps |
5:26 |
9:04 |
11:16 |
14:15 |
16:50 |
Won by Marie Lawrence |
Girls Individual Sweeps |
5:20 |
9:12 |
11:29 |
14:35 |
17:12 |
Won by Jordan Hasay |
Torrance's Kent
Morikawa overpowered his opposition in the latter stages of the Large
Schools Team Sweepstakes race, recording a winning time of 15:02, nine
seconds ahead of St. John Bosco star Victor Bonilla. Reno's Walter Juarez
was third in 15:13. Oak Ridge, ranked third in the state in Division
II, won the race with 118 points. Rising Division I power Vista Murrieta
(131) and Nevada state title favorite Reno (138) placed second and third,
respectively. Reno did not look quite as sharp as in past outings, probably
due to undertaking its third road trip in four weeks.
Although the advent of the newly
featured SuperSweeps division claimed some of the leading talent away
from the Individual Sweepstakes race, it was another opportunity for
Alisal junior Diego Estrada to win a big race. Estrada, who also impressed
during his big divisional victory at Stanford three weeks ago, won in
15:14 but did not appear to be seriously challenged despite a slim four-second
win. Fall River's Brent Handa, opting to race here instead of against
his Division V counterparts, boosted his recruiting stock with a very
fine 15:18. Previously unheralded Alex Avilez of Valley Center (San
Diego area) placed third in 15:23, just ahead of Highland's Jeremy Acosta
(15:24) and San Pedro's Steven Calise (15:26).
Division II teams not in
the sweepstakes races benefitted a tad from competing in the early-morning
session, while non-sweepstakes Division I schools were hindered by the
uncomfortable heat which was felt worst at about 1:30 p.m. All told,
there were 13,901 finishers across the 96 high school races in what
is easily the largest cross-country invitational in the nation, if not
the world.