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2007 State
Championship
by Doug Speck - Editor DyeStatCal Out on the course the day started with a young lady who lays claim as the nation’s best, and ended with a young man marking his ascendency to that honor. The State’s best ever female group graced the action, with the Boys’ action highlighted by a squad that placed itself high on the all-time lists and marked a second straight weekend of superb racing. The tales woven into and told through the races, and the debates as to who really is the best settled out on the course gives a great sense of closure to the regular season on this meet date.
Bright and early the Girls Division V race featured the nation’s
top prep distance runner from last spring, and some great team
action. Jordan Hasay had followed a good end to her California
track season in June with an impressive win at the USATF Junior
Nationals (under age 20) and medal at the World Youth (under 18)
championships while enjoying a life-long dream of challenging the
Kenyan distance runners. A seasoned veteran versed in racing styles
from California to Hungary over the last couple of years, Hasay
had broadcast a goal of sub-17 this day on the course, with no
one a chance of being in the same area code as the super junior
at the finish. It would be the challenge of the clock which would
be the motivation this day, a familiar tune for the blond-tressed
star. With a 5:21 first mile and over twenty second lead there
it was a comfortable solo run for Hasay, with the lead stretched
to over a minute through two miles and a 17:05 clocking at the
finish. Jordan’s lifetime best of 17:02 was set here two
years ago, but one senses a nice control to her running these days,
with the emotional edge in reserve and coming out in the next couple
of weeks when she faces the nation’s best, who will challenge
her severely, in the Foot Locker National series. The action did not slow a bit this morning as the Girls
Division I field set up on the course for the day’s second race. Saugus
High had put it into overdrive since the start of the season early
in September, and did not slow down a tad as they roared through
a series of super efforts. Senior Katie Dunn towed a talented group
of underclassers through the campaign for the powerhouse. Last
weekend they took down the All-Time Team Time record at Mt. SAC,
and the Corona del Mar group who held that mark also was the record
holder here, so there was no reason the number two ranked nationally
Centurions would not aim at that standard also. The magic continued
as Katie Dunn (6th 17:46) and frosh Kaylin Mahoney (7th 17:47)
led the Saugus crew that gapped 41 seconds 1-5 for its 56 point
total and their 90:49 team time, another Course All-Time best.
Now you may wonder who is the team ranked better than these guys.
Fayetteville-Manlius of New York is the only squad ranked ahead
of Saugus nationally, with the New York crew four in the top seven
and all their scorers in the top fifteen of an all-division very
strong New York Federation meet a few weeks back, with a big showdown
set up with Saugus in a week at the club level in the Nike Team
Championships in Portland. The New York group is the defending
National Champs, with Saugus leading the attempt to wrest the title
in Portland from New Yorkers, with teams from that state having
a strangehold on the championship award from the NTN contest on
the female side the first four years. With conditions quite a bit
different than those we face locally (mid-high thirties in temperature
and wet, wet, wet) it is a challenge, and it will be interesting
to see the results. The Boys Division V contest would feature another strong Woodcrest Christian (Riverside) group from down south, with a twenty-two point win over traditional power Flintridge Prep (La Canada) in the Section finals. The easily spotted purple and gold Riverside crew had already watched their girls team battle on the Girls’ side, so they were primed to go after their third consecutive championship. With individual favorite Arik Van Halen (Oakwood, North Hollywood) edging away from the field early on through a 4:53 first mile, Woodcrest leaders Jake Jeanson and Brennan McBride hung to the top pack, finishing second and sixth eventually. Van Halen cruised comfortably ahead, with Jeanson coming closer and closer, within two seconds at the finish 15:59-16:01. Woodcrest appeared comfortably in control of the team contest the entire race, with fine frosh Myles Scarano (16:37), Soph Jesse Brooks (16:57), and J.R. Barreto (17:00) all finishing in the top twenty-five overall on the way to a 52-95 win over University (SF). Woodcrest was 82:52 team time, with an 82:36 run last fall, with four of the top six back for next year, with the squad hoping to add a fourth consecutive championships.
Race four on the day was Boys’ Division I, with a huge number
of quality teams making up this level. There are about a dozen
super programs statewide. However, it would not turn out to be
terribly complicated, as one squad would put together two super
efforts come championship time to race away with the title here
after a big Section finals run. There is an added bonus to race
viewing when the winners run in a very distinctive uniform (white
and blue horizontal stripes here) that makes their impressive effort
easy to watch. Dana Hills had emerged the previous week in the
Southern Section Finals, 94-133 over Vista Murrieta with a fine
77:01 team time at Mt. SAC (15:24 average). The Orange County crew
would roughly duplicate that effort here, with a fine 78:54 effort
(15:46 ave) and 65 points total to again win comfortably, this
time over Murrieta Valley, the other half of the greater Temecula ‘name-game’ with
135 (79:53). Coach Tim Butler’s group gained some confidence
in a tight Orange County Championship win in mid-October, adding
a win in the Team Sweeps event at Mt. SAC at 79:03, with Murrieta
Valley (78:00) taking Vista Murrieta (78:10) in the not to be confused
with ‘Super Sweeps’ race in the Walnut area version
of the ‘name-game.’ Dana Hills Coach Tim Butler has
quite a history in the sport at his school, as his 1987 team was
prominent in our discussion of the first ever State Meet in the
sport some twenty years ago. His squad this year came around very
nicely, with a thirty-two second 1-5 gap here behind junior Tyler
Valdes, who sat just back of the leaders in the second pack to
finish fifth at 15:25. The 78:54 makes DH one of the top ten all-time
squads ever on this course, with the group’s performance
interestingly pushing out off the all-time top twenty list the
1988 DH group that won the State Division I title in the series’ second
year. The Dolphin domination of this year’s field was fairly
complete, with the #4-7 runners for the squad all quite easily
ahead of the comparable scorers for any team in the field, with
four returning between Tyler Valdes and seventh runner Anthony
La Cambria (16:07) for next year. Murrieta Valley would receive
an “at-large” berth in the Nike Team Nationals in a
week as a club group based upon their season-long performances.
The Girls Division II race was next, with nationally ranked and
well-traveled Carondelet (Concord) the favorite. The first real
turn in the form charts would take place here, as the contest from
the team standpoint did not seem to develop favoring any one of
the top groups, with Sac Joaquin power Ponderosa, and Southern
Section squads Newport Harbor, Foothill, and Mira Costa scorers
in positions comparable to Carondelet after a couple of miles.
The individual race here would be the property of defending Champion
Christine Babcock (Woodbridge, Irvine), with the nation’s
top miler returning from last year a much better hill and dale
runner this fall, blazing a 16:38 clocking at Mt. SAC in the Southern
Section competition. After a 5:23 first mile Babcock was gone from
the pack, pressing through an 11:04 two mile and pushing the pace
through to the finish for the day’s quickest 17:04 clocking
that bettered the division’s All-Time best of 17:11 by Sara
Bei. Elizabeth Apgar (Lincoln, San Diego) and Jacque Taylor (Casa
Grande, Petaluma) would battle for second, Taylor prevailing 17:44-48,
with Nicole Hood (Carondelet) fourth at 17:52. Babcock’s
17:04 is the #6 All-Time performance on this course, with the Woodbridge
senior making the decision to not compete in the post-season Foot
Locker series to start preparation for track.
The second half of the program started with the Boys
Division III race. Favored Barstow High School had come along nicely during
the Fall, with a monster 77:08 run and 34 points in the tough Southern
Section Finals. With Aztec senior Anthony Solis and Isaac Chavez
taking their place with the front pack early, and Andrew Romano
there in the top half dozen, it looked like another great run early,
with Ian Barba and Josh Ow finishing among the top forty to take
the squad to 69 points and a school record 79:53 team time here.
Some good teams were left a ways behind, with Oak Park second at
120 (81:26) and Aptos 149 (82:07) next.
The Girls Division IV race was another that would be super close
in the team scoring area. St. Mary’s (Berkeley) was top ranked
most of the Fall, with Maranatha a good win over Oaks Christian
and Flintridge Sacred Heart down South, and Bret Harte a good Sac
Joaquin Finals run. Individually Sarah Sumpter (Healdsburg) had
developed from a very good to great runner, putting in a summer
of high mileage, then settling into a fall of super races. She
cruised to a number of fine Invitational efforts, and raced local
history’s #4 clocking ever at the popular Santa Rosa Spring
Lake course behind Amber Trotter, Julia Stamps, and Sara Bei, all
national champions during their prep careers. Sumpter raced away
early, with the powerful striding sunglass-wearing lass leading
by eight seconds at the mile at 5:23. No one came closer, as she
raced by two miles at 11:15, and finished up at 17:26 to break
the previous Division IV best time of 17:47 by Maribella Aparicio
(Fillmore), an eventual NCAA All-American at BYU.
Some very good groups graced the Boys Division
II level. Down south Loyola HS had a solid team joined by age-group
star Elias
Gedyon, with the frosh star racing far beyond his years as the
state’s top first year runner. Around the state Woodcreek
(Roseville) and Petaluma were powerful groups. As the day wore
on, we were 12:20 p.m. for the start of this race, the dust started
to be raised out on the trails on the course. A relaxed 4:55
first mile had this race with the biggest crowd up front early
on with
a huge pack in close tow. Chris Romo (Woodcreek), Emmanuel Ngula
(Vista del Lago, Moreno Valley), and favorite James Tracy (Del
Campo, Fair Oaks) were three abreast out front through two miles
at 9:55. The powerful Tracy finished off a super regular season
by steadily moving away from there to a 17 second win over quick-closing
Jose Alcantar (Hueneme, Oxnard) 15:23-15:40, with Ngula, a top
800 meter runner who moved up nicely in distance this fall, edging
Adrian Sherrod (Steele Canyon) and fine soph Garrett Rowe (Mountain
View), all three at 15:41.
The Girls Division III had become the property of Corona del Mar
in recent years, with the 2007 version a fine race the previous
week at the Southern Section finals, taking Orange Lutheran 49-53
with a fine 92:21 run. It would take a fine CdM run to keep ahead
of the talented OL group this week, with a number of other fine
squads gracing the division with Campolindo, St. Ignatius, Maria
Carrillo, and Oak Park from up and down the state very strong.
This was another division where one did not have a sense of domination
by any one team while the contest was going. Corona del Mar had
leader Shelby Buckley in the very top pack, but 2006 seventh placer
Allison Damon faded from the front group and went from the race
to the hospital with a possible torn muscle after ending up 44th.
Lutheran was solid, with Staci Foster sixth and Taylor Dutch ninth
with the rest of their top five inside the top forty to emerge
the winner over Oak Park 85-112, with Campolindo 124 and Maria
Carrillo 178 ahead of Corona del Mar in fifth at 181.
The final race of the day, Boys Division
IV, had
some real anticipation to it, with German Fernandez (Riverbank)
cranking
a number of monster
efforts
during the fall that showed the ability to challenge any course
record in existence. The course standard here was 14:38 set by
Kinney National Champ Marc Davis from back in 1986. German’s
effort here did not let anybody down in the least with more about
that in a second. The division teamwise featured one of the day’s
biggest favorites, with McFarland from the Central Section hoping
to add to its record haul of nine titles and move ahead of Jesuit
as the only school who has won ten titles in the twenty-one years
of this affair. St. Mary’s (Berkeley) was ranked #2 statewide,
with Nordhoff, Big Bear, and Oaks Christian in that order in the
previous week’s Southern Section Finals race. |
