COTTONWOOD, CA - Sunny skies and gusty north winds greeted athletes, coaches, family and friends of the sport assembling for the Northern Section Cross County Championship at the storied West Valley High School cross country course in Cottonwood. Unfortunately the real world intrusion of tragedy on the day's events left many attendees with more mixed emotions knowing Paradise was in flames and most Bobcat runners were not in attendance, more worried whether their home would survive than showing up to race. Smoke from the "Camp Fire" was visible on the southern horizon as a constant reminder throughout the afternoon.

Girls 3 Mile Championship

The varsity girls were off first in weather much different than last year's cool, damp conditions as circumtances, although seasonably warm, were breezy and exceptionally dry. The Foothill contingent went out hard at the gun and were firmly in the lead a half mile in. One hill later Osborne hot early pace had strung out the field by the mile mark yet her lead over her two nearest chasers Trinity's Lauren Harper and Bundy, the Chico High senior, had not enlarged. Team wise the Cougars still had four in the top ten and looked in good shape in the competition with Chico. Harper and Bundy ran almost side-by-side through the middle mile, closing down the gap with Osborne that had been as much as 30 meters. as the effects of her aggressive opening mile on the hilly course were made plain to Osborne as her calves lock up and her slowed down her pace. Meanwhile Bundy's more measured approach over the first two miles that featured several big hills left her with more than enough in reserve for the closing mile. She gapped Harper coming off the final hill, then surged into the lead well before reemerging from the passage through school's out buildings to the course's grassy approach to the track finish. She crossed the finish line first on the West Valley track in 19 minutes, 7.54 seconds, while Osborne still managed to take second in 19:18.72 and Harper held off a late charge by Sutter's Mia Ashby to place third in 19:28.80.

"This is kind of the race where I told myself, 'Prove it,'" Bundy said. "It's one of those courses where if you want to prove yourself this is where you do it, so I did that." While Bundy cherished the individual title, her first section title in cross country or track, fought back tears as she embraced teammates, coaches and supporters as her Panther team came one point short of gaining the section title and state berth for D3. Nearby though Osborne and her Foothill teammates rejoiced in winning the Division III team championship by this slimmest of margins. Chico, after being buried early in the competition, worked its way back into contention on the legs of three freshmen (Sophie Sims, Una Griffith & Liberty Bronson), that had worked their way well into the top ten. This probably gave the Panthers a tenuous lead approaching the track finish. Unfortunately the closing sprint saw Foothill's Grace Dudley go from 8th to 6th and that proved to be the difference. Foothill scored 38 team points and Chico took second with 39, while no other team scored less than a 107 points. How close was it? Both teams would place four in the top ten and have team time difference of only two seconds (times of scoring five added together). But consequences were huge with only one state berth available for Division III, so Foothill qualified all seven of its varsity girls runners for the CIF State Championships Nov. 24, including top-10 placers Morgan Baseley, Grace Dudley and Mason Baseley.

"I'm really proud of all of them, they've worked so hard this season," Osborne said of her Foothill teammates. "We've really been wanting to go to state as a team again this year, like we did last year. We work together on this, we're a team, we run together, we push through the pain together." The Panthers won't send their whole team to state, though freshmen Sophie Sims, Una Griffith and Liberty Bronson will be joining Bundy by virtue of placing in the top eight within the division.

On the boys' side, Chico senior Charlie Giannini won his second straight section individual title, clocking a time of 15:42.46 as he took the lead early and continued to expand his advantage the rest of the way. He was part of a Panthers group that scored only 28 team points, easily first among the 22 contending teams. As leader, the course tested Giannini early when he ran alone head on into strong wind gusts, though he also benefited from those same elements in the latter half of the race with the wind at his back until the final march to the track.

"It ended up pretty bad," Giannini said afterward of the wind. "It definitely played a factor, mixed with kind of the dryness of the air right now, it took a little extra out of you in the first mile. But then it was nice to have it coming back." Giannini effort on the day improved his time on the West Valley course from his junior season championship, dropping from 15:44.80 to 15:42.46. "I'm really happy I ran faster than I did last year, even if it is by a slim margin," Giannini said. "I would've liked to do better, but I'm satisfied with the time I got here."



Boys 3 Mile Championship

A year ago, Giannini was the only Chico runner to place in the top 10 at the section final, but this season the Panthers improved with four runners in that top flight. Bretten Farrell placed fourth, Jaxon LeDuc was fifth and Rory Monninger took sixth for Chico. Although Chico boasted four runners within the top 10, Pleasant Valley seniors Freer and Johnson were not content to let them walk away with the section championship without a fight. As wind played a factor during the race, Freer and Johnson hung with a chase pack that varied between four to eight runners trailing Giannini and drafted off of them. An early chase pack of Justin Mattes, Nick Torres & CJ Duncan disintegrated after the mile to be absorbed by a second group composed of Johnson, Freer, Leduc, Bretten Farrell, Luke Bland . By the two mile mark, Torres had work his way into a distant second with with Bretten Farrell, Freer, Rory Monniger & Leduc in chase mode with Johnson just a little further back.

The crosstown competition sling-shot them past Torres, as they worked their way off the final hill and onto closing flat portion of the race. With about 800 meters to go, right before runners exited the last grass field and made the final turn leading unto the track, Freer (16:37.25) pulled ahead into second and then maintained it to the end while Johnson (16:40.09) needed a bit more of the track to fend off Farrell by less than a one-second margin. "I definitely was trying my hardest to draft on everyone else, because there's a lot of wind, and the hills - you can definitely die if you're alone" Freer said. "I was trying to stay in the pack and not be out exposed." Johnson improved on a fourth-place finish in last year's event as a junior. "It's a load off my shoulders," Johnson said. "I didn't want to do bad my senior year, so it's relieving that I finished hard and I got third place."

Boys individual qualifiers: Donovan Freer and Kyle Johnson, PV, in Division III; Nick Torres, Enterprise, CJ Duncan, Wheatland, Jacob Garret, Enterprise, Patrick Roehling, Paradise, and Elijah Higelin, Yreka in Division IV; Erik Dominguez, Willows, Ryan Mitchell, Weed, Adolfo Garcia, Willows, Logan VanSickle, Modoc, Isaiah Van Denend, Redding Christian, in Division V.

Girls team qualifiers: Britta Bundy, Sophie Sims, Una Griffith, Liberty Bronson, Chico, in Division III; Kendall Moxness, Central Valley, Jordan Linsley, Yreka, Caroline Forseth, Enterprise, Toni Kostelec, West Valley, in Division IV; Lauren Harper, Trinity, Alicia Murillo, Hamilton, Jennifer Ruiz, Modoc, Marissa Bonivert, Mt. Shasta, Nicole Yasumi, Modoc, in Division V.

Boys team qualifiers: Chico in Division III; University Prep, Sutter in Division IV; Mt. Shasta in Division V.
Girls team qualifiers: Foothill in Division III; University Prep, Sutter in Division IV; Durham in Division V.

The CIF State Championships will be held at Woodward Park in Fresno Nov. 24.

Two other races were held after the varsity competition was concluded. Open boys and girl races run on the shorter JV course (2.2 miles). This included frosh/soph and upper division runners that did not make the team's top seven. Not surprisingly, Chico with its large team size dominated both "B" races. Chico freshman Carsen Quintero led the Panther girls to victory over Foothill (24-37) by placing their scoring five in the top eight places. The Chico boys were even more dominating with Mario Giannini (Charlie's younger brother) claiming individual title with his Panther teammates taking the next five places and five of the following six finishers to sweep with a low score of 15. Giannini, unpressed at the end, missed the course record by a mere second.