CERES,CA - The Chico Wildcat Harriers enjoyed a fine first meet of the season on Saturday night while racing at the Kim Duyst Invitational. This was year number two of our attending this meet, having won both team titles a year ago. This year the fields had doubled in size, as we were joined by a plethora of DI schools that decided to join the fun of racing under the lights over a relatively quick 2k loop course. Both Wildcat squads placed third in their respective races, and each were not far off defending their titles from a year ago. Red shirting Junior Iresh Molina won the women's overall race, and had she been in uniform the 'Cats would have come home victorious, but of course we've been preparing to race without the twins this fall, so a third place run while defeating a good number of DI's is a good start to the season. Please enjoy the short race re-caps below along with results links, etc..
Men's 8k:
The men's field was much different this year than it was a year ago when the Chico men controlled much of the race at the front, and eventually put our entire top 7 in the first 8 places. This year CAL Berkeley sent a senior laden squad to the line, as did UC Davis. Santa Clara was now in the mix, as was St Mary's. Each squad offered some fire-power at the front, so it was no surprise to see a very diverse lead pack covering the ground quite quickly over the initial 2k loop. Team scores at 2k had Saint Mary's leading, with Santa Clara in second, UC Davis in third, Chico in fourth, and CAL in fifth.
Each Loop brought some sorting of the field but throughout it all Chico's Damian Garcia and Mario Giannini ran among the lead group. Travis Selby, Jesus Villarreal and Sergio Cuartas worked together through the middle stages of the race operating in the 15-20 range overall. Team scores were very tight throughout as the timing service shared updated chip results with the passing of each 2k timing mat.
UC Davis' sub-14 5k guy Muhamed Ahmed attempted to steal the race during the third loop as he left the pack and began chasing the cart for a long push to the finish. Garcia and Giannini played their cards with the main pack that still included CAL's 7:53 3k guy Justin Pretrie and a number of other decorated guys.
Villarreal had pulled away from his group and ran alone for much of the second half of the race, while Selby and Cuartas battled for spots inside the top-20.
Just when it appeared that Muhamed would sail away to victory, the pack began to make up ground over the final 2k revolution. Pretrie, who'd won the USF Invite 2 weeks prior, left the main group and quickly passed the tiring Davis runner. There would be no catching Pretrie on this night. As athletes came into view with 500m remaining in the race Muhamed ran in second, but Damian and Mario were clearly making up ground with each step and were on their way to sure 2/3 overall finishes. (*Unfortunately after passing yours truly and heading down the final stretch Damian missed a turn in the course and ended up on the wrong side of the finish chute.. He would hop some fencing to get back onto the course and eventually crossed the line 5th). Thankfully Mario found the finish without incident and finished 2nd.
The team battle was very exciting.. CAL took 1 point with Pretrie's win, and Chico garnered 2/5 points w/ Mario and Damian's runs. While Damian was trying to find his way to the finish (literally) UCD put both Muhamed and Donovan Cheruiyout across the line in 3rd and 4th. The key to Davis' eventual win was the 7th and 8th place finishes of their 3 and 4 runners. CAL's #2 placed 9th and their 3rd crossed the line in 11th. Chico's #3 Jesus Villarreal would take 15th, while CAL's #4 would finish 17th. Chico's 4th and 5th runners would place 21st and 23rd, making us the first team to conclude their scoring. CAL's 5th finished just 1 place behind our own, giving them an edge over the 'Cats in this narrow team battle. Chico would put runners 6 and 7 across the line before Davis' final scorer, but in the end the low sticks that the Aggies tagged on the field would prevail. Having been around Nor Cal XC for 3 decades I can confirm that this was the Aggies' first victory over the Chico men, since 2002, but it was a heck of a battle and today's UCD squad (very senior laden) deserved the win. CAL would edge the 'Cats by just 3 points, but that would have been just a 1 point deficit had the finish stretch been marked a bit better for Garcia ;v)
Overall this was a solid start for the 'Cats' We were a bit more spread out than I'd have liked, but we have a long season to tighten things up, and there's no doubt that the firepower at the front pulled our front runners to some pretty impressive early season paces.
Women's 6k:
Like the men's race earlier, the women's was just as exciting when following the team scores throughout. Given the quick narrowing of the course and the size of the field, yours truly knew the front pace would be very hot, so words of caution were given to the Chico women before the start, letting them know to get decent positioning early, but understanding that you had 20 min of running to sort through the field.
At 2k Stanislaus led the field with 34 points (4 running in the top-8). Sac State ran in 2nd with 76 points and Santa Clara was third with 107. Chico ran in 4th with a 116 tally with UNR in 5th with 120. CAL and UC Davis followed with 159 and 182. Chico was led by last week's TT winner Marbella Flores and Megan Malloy who ran in 14th and 15th places with 2 loops remaining.
At 4k the women's scores: 1. Stan St. 55, 2. Sac State. 85, 3. Nevada 108, 4. Chico 109, 5. UC Davis 110, 6. Santa Clara 120, 7. CAL 140. Stan still controlled the race with low sticks operating among the top 10, but they were giving up some points. The Wildcats lost a few with Marbella falling back with an ankle irritation issue, but gained some momentum with the movement of Paulina Martins and Sienna Bianchi. Martins, a true frosh from neighboring Orland HS has looked very strong and confident in workouts and she was racing like it on Saturday. At 4k she ran side by side with Megan Malloy and looked ready for the challenging final 2k ahead. Bianchi had bridged up and ran just 1 second behind her teammates at the 2 lap checkpoint. Running just 5 seconds behind Bianchi at 4k were RS Frosh teammates Kira Forsberg and Isabelle Rosales who were making their uniform debut in fine fashion.
The Chico women did some really fine work over the final 2k in this one, and Stan State gave up quite a few points, as their #4 (who began the final loop ahead of our #1) would be passed by our entire top-6 over the final lap. While Stan added 20 points to their total over the final lap, finishing with 75, the 'Cats would lop 29 off theirs for a final tally of 80. Sac State would slice 10 points off their tally over the final 2k to miss Stan by just 1 point. The big final push by the 'Cats pushed them well ahead of UCD, UNR and CAL, but left them just off the win.
Leading the way for the 'Cats at the finish was Junior Sienna Bianchi, who ran incredibly strong throughout, and employed her sub 4:30 (1500) speed over the finish stretch to place 13th. Megan Malloy would follow just 1 second behind in 14th, while frosh Kira Forsberg and Paulina Martins would finish in 17th and 18th. CCAA steeple champ Olivia Beschorner would be the first #5 to find the finish between all teams with her 23rd place run, while Jasmine Fletcher and Isabelle Rosales tagged points to all of our opponents' scores with their 26th and 28th place finishes (they both beat everyone else's fifth runners).
Unfortunately, our lack of a low stick ultimately prevented the ladies from nabbing the team win, but I'm confident that we'll continue to develop that aspect as we roll through the season. Speaking of low sticks, it should be noted that red shirting junior Iresh Molina won the race outright with a great final lap of her own. Down by as much as 30-40 meters in the second half of the competition Iresh rallied late and got the win (while donning her former Chico HS singlet nonetheless). Some additional highlights for the 'Cats women. Our 1-7 split was a miniscule 19 seconds. Our 1-12 was under a minute. This was a really nice showing for a women's team that had 10 running in the uniform for their first time ever.
Next up: The Chico crew heads north to Oregon in 2 weeks to race in the Mike Johnson Invitational in Western Oregon. This will serve as a preview race for the NCAA Regional championships to be held on the same course in November.
