Handa, Dillard claim individual crowns Mount Shasta captures both team titles at 2006 Section Championships

Chico's Hannah Dillard opens up a huge lead a little over a mile into the girls race

By John Ryan, Record Searchlight - November 10, 2006 supplimented by Joe Hartman/DyeStatCal & Tom Cushman/Hay Bale AC COTTONWOOD -- Brent Handa thought Enterprise High School's Eric Malain was about 20 or 30 yards behind him. Guess again. The Fall River senior broke tape a full 100 yards ahead of the runner up. He turned the most anticipated race of Thursday's Northern Section cross country championships into a runaway. Handa passed his Enterprise counterpart on the second incline, "Varsity Hill," at the West Valley campus spread, and exploded through the final flats in 15 minutes, 50.94 seconds. The Bulldogs' runner had finished second in this race the previous two years. Last season, he came within two seconds of an upset over Mount Shasta rival Austin Fritzke. Thursday's race wasn't so close. Malain finished in 16:23. Red Bluff's Nick Rebol took third (16:32). Pleasant Valley junior Tanner Hickman was fourth (16:38) while Enterprise freshman Zach Kaylor, holding off a spirit challenge from the Mount Shasta contingent, claimed fifth (16:44). Handa made no bones about how much he dislikes hills, and Malain planned to use the terrain to his benefit. He thinks he may have moved too early, however. "At the top of the (second) hill I would have hung back and sat behind him," Malain second-guessed. "He passed me at the top and took off down the hill, I don't think he'd have had the energy if I wouldn't have passed him so soon. But today, he was on fire."

Malain held pace for almost two miles of the three-mile course, but as they approached the final hill, "Elliott's Torture," Handa had torn open 30 yards of space. He was weary of Malain's stronger finishing kick, and wanted to hold a comfortable edge as the finish approached. If only he could have known how cushy his advantage was. "After that last hill, I could tell he (Malain) wasn't as close," Handa said. "I'd say he was probably 20, 30 yards back. I was hearing different things. Some were saying 30 some were saying 100 yards." It was at least that. When Handa hit the flat, grassy practice grounds south of the football stadium he exploded on what had already become a hefty lead. "Once he hit the flat, on that last part (it was done)," Malain said. "God, he's fast on the flats." It was the finish Handa envisioned at the end of every workout. "I'd try to picture it a lot," he said. "I had to get in my head. If you don't think you can do it, you're not gonna." The girl's race was much less dramatic, at least as far as who won. Hannah Dillard, the Chico High winner of this race last year as a junior, bolted out to an early lead and never looked back to claim her second section title in 18:25. "I was shooting for the (course) record which I totally thought was reachable" Dillard said relating her strategy for this year's race, "Last year I was 18:16 which means I'd have to PR by 17 (seconds) to tie it. So I totally thought I could do it because I know I'm in better shape than I was last year. But, whew, I don't know what happened. My first mile was like 5:50 so I felt I was going fast and I thought I could keep it. The first mile felt good, felt great actually. The second mile with those two hills... I felt OK. Something just happened in the third mile where my body just went numb and it was all I could do to just keep running." This was lost on her competitors were too far behind and too busy battling for second to notice any of Dillard's closing struggles. Mt Shasta's Katie Fritzke, 2003 section champ as a freshman, 2004 section champ Hannah Hodgkinson from Pleasant Valley and West Valley sophomore Michelle Johnson were in contention for second. Surprisingly, so was Hagen Atkins of Durham. Atkins, who was one of six girls to break the 19 minute mark on the West Valley course last year, had struggled most of this season to regain last year's form.

Early in the race she was content to let others lead, coming by the mile in sixth, however she used Elliot's Torture to pass Hodgkinson and move into fourth, then parlayed the final hill to move past Johnson, then Fritzke before using the downhill and flat of the final mile to add some cushion to her advantage over these more more storied section distance runners and claim second in 18:42. Mt Shasta's Katie Fritzke ended up third (18:51) and WV's Johnson, the only other runner to break 19 minutes this year, settled for fourth (18:57). In the team race, Mount Shasta pulled off the unthinkable, or at least, the highly unlikely. The Bears not only swept both boys and girls team titles -- over schools twice their size -- but they did it in brutally dominant fashion. They're the smallest school to win a boys or girls overall Northern Section title in a single year, much less doing both in the same year. The Mount Shasta girls had four runners finish in the top 11 to tally 63 points and a 43-point edge on second-place West Valley. Senior Katie Fritzke led the way with her third-place finish. Teammates, sophomore Cynthia Laicona followed in seventh (19:28) while junior Natalie Sojka, running her first race since early September, claimed ninth (19:41). Freshman Maggie Strong was the fourth finisher for the Bears in 19:47. This fine finish of the top four easily offset a tough outing by Mount Shasta's final scorer Joanna Beem who finished a distant 42nd. The second-place Eagles were followed in the team standings by Chico (112), a mid season favorite to repeat as section champs before losing a key runner to injury, Shasta (135) and Enterprise (144). Mount Shasta's boys finished with 84 points, ahead of plucky West Valley team (116) and EAL runnerups Shasta (132), and EAL Champions Chico (144) with Corning (204) rounding out the top five. The Bears were led by Cory Coppin was sixth (16:50), closly followed by Ramon Rubio in seventh (17:03). Teammates Mitchell Nesheim (17:27), Kale Coppin (17:32) took 14th and 17th. Nick Kennedy, plucked off the Bear's soccer team, was there fifth scorer taking 46th (18:18) in his seasonal debut.

Fall River's Brent Handa out front after the hills with less than a mile to go