PALO CEDRO, CA -- High clouds and warm sunshine greeted runners as they warmed up for the EAL-SRL Cross Country Championships held this year in the athletic fields and woods behind Foothill High School in Palo Cedro.
The Chico High boys cross-country team, by placing five runners place in the top 10, won the varsity boys race highlighted by sophomore Mario Giannini's second-place effort in a hotly contested battle with Enterprise's Nick Torres. Torres clocked a time of 15 minutes, 55.22 seconds, just ahead of Giannini's 15:55.78. Torres has won 4 of 5 races over Giannini this season in similar fashion. Giannini only win came in the center meet two week ago on the same course where he used a sustained surge to gap the Enterprise senior. However no such luck this time around as Torres was more than up to the challenge.
Chico senior Hunter Dougherty, using a strong closing mile to pass three Shasta runners, took third. This dashed what little hope that the Wolves harbored in upsetting the section's top ranked team. Chico closed out their scoring with Alan Nava seventh, Andre Mota eighth and Liam Sehorn ninth to finish with 29 points to Shasta's 42. Shasta was led by Thomas MacLean 4th, Dylan Jackson 5th and Luke Bland 6th.
Pleasant Valley's Renton McGregor rounded out the top ten to lead the crosstown Vikings to a third place finish with 76 points. Other Viking scorers were David Smith 12th, Daylan Chandley 16th, Adam Bahach 20th and Frederick Southworth 21st. Enterprise was 4th (92 pts), Foothill 5th (134) with Red Bluff closing out the team scoring in 6th (190 pts).
The Foothill girls team took first with 20 points, well ahead of second-place Chico's 41 points. The Cougars aggressive start put the Panthers on their heels from the get-go. Chico was coming into the meet missing two runners who quit the team for unrelated reasons the week before and were replaced by top JV's Grace Becker and Calle Anderson. To be fair Foothill girls were also down a runner, missing senior Grace Dudley due to a soccer injury (MCL sprain). The Cougars expanded a relatively small lead going up the hill the second time to insurmountable passing through the woods the final time. Thus, a tight race turned into a rout with the Cougars claiming the top four spots. It wes an amazing performance by the Foothill five that were led by first-place finisher Rize Oliveira, who ran a time of 19:33.51 in winning for the first time this year. She was backed up by teammates Claire Durbin second (19:41), Emma Flynn third (19:59) and Zoey Bishop fourth (20:03) Emily Murray finished out Foothill's scoring by placing tenth (20:57).
Una Griffith led the Panthers with her fifth-place finish in 20:28.01 as Chico's normal 1-2 punch of Sophie Sims (sixth), Nahkia Clements (seventh) were struggling with sub-par days. Della Molina (ninth) also finished in the top 10 as did Lindie Larson of Shasta, the only runner not from Chico or Foothill to do so.
PV's Asha Lal, out with the leaders early also struggled in the second half of the race but still managed to lead her team with a time of 22:08.76 and a 17th place finish. Pleasant Valley finished fourth as team with 116 points, behind Shasta 72 pts. Enterprise took fifth (128 pts) while Red Bluff had an incomplete team. By winning the league championship, Foothill tied the regular season leader Chico, who won both center meets, for the overall league title in cross country.
It came as no surprise that the Chico boys ran away with league JV title with a near sweep, after their domimant win at the final league center meet two weeks ago. Nate Solecki, as he had done in both center meets, came away with the win. It was a glorified dual for the JV girls race with only Chico and Pleasant Valley having conplete teams and all but three of the 26 competitors. Chico's Dorothy (Dot) Clemente was the easy winner and only runner breaking 13 minutes.
All EAL teams will compete in the Northern Section Finals next Thursday (November 14) at West Valley High in Cottonwood.
