Story by Amber Chen
Staff Writer
Photo by Colin Grace
Contributor
The varsity cross country teams competed at the CIF Division IV Southern Section Preliminaries on Saturday, Nov. 16, both qualifying for Finals. Despite many injured and sick runners, the girls team placed sixth and the boys team finished fifth.
Sophomore Sydney Morrow led the girls team, placing fifth out of 159 runners with a time of 19:29.5. Junior Lindsay Michels (24) finished the three miles in 20:19.4, while sophomore Mai Koyama (37) ran a time of 20:55.8.
Sophomore Kerrigan Riley earned 48th place with a 21:28.1 time. In 62nd and 81st, respectively, senior Amber Gonzalez-Pacheco clocked in at 21:48.6 and sophomore Miranda Liu completed the course in 22:22.0. Junior Amelia Jarolim rounded off the team in 84th, running 22:33.2.
“We made it to the next round, but the conditions were really tough and nobody was able to race their best,” Michels said. “We’re hoping to make [it to] state next week, but it’s going to be a really close one.”
Senior Sam Clark placed eighth with a time of 16:29.2. Juniors Andrew Villapadua (11) and Patrick Latting (14) followed, running 16:41.3 and 16:49.3, respectively. Fellow junior Andrew Parkinson finished in 17:52.9 for 53rd place.
Sophomore David Zhang placed 64th, running the course in 18:08.9, while senior Ian Wang came in 68th, with 18:17.9. Sophomore Brady Nakamura pushed through a knee injury, and ended in 124th place with a time of 20:41.1.
“There is no prize for a victory in Prelims, so we didn’t use all of our effort, [since we were] trying to qualify and save energy for Finals next week,” Clark said. “I feel both teams were able to perform without overly exerting themselves, which bodes well for Finals.”
Both teams will compete at CIF Southern Section Finals in Riverside on Saturday, Nov. 23.
