COTTONWOOD, CA - On the fourth anniversary of the devastating Camp Fire, athletes coalesced on the West Valley High School athletic fields to compete in the Northern Section Cross Country Championships. This course has been in play for the championships since 1992 and has seen its share of exceptional athletes and performances. Sunny skies, cool temperatures and mostly light northerly breeze were on hand for this year's event making for a vast improvememt from last year's gray sloppy conditions. On the line would be eight team (four boys and four girls, one for D3, two for D4 and one for D5) and numerous individual berths to the state meet.
Heading into the section championships Chico was the favorite for the overall girls team title while Pleasant Valley was favored for the boys. While the Foothill girls had tied Chico for the league team title, their only win over the Panthers was in the first center meet when key members of the Chico team were either absent or didn't finish. A more complete version of the Panthers did win the second center meet (still without their number one runner) which Chico followed that up with a more dominating full team performance in winning the league championships. Unfortunately, in the intervening week positive COVID tests forced a couple of Chico's scoring five to stay home and thus miss competing at the section championships (specifically their No. 1, No. 4/5 runners).
On the boys side of the ledger Pleasant Valley had been the top section team most of the season, beating the number two team Chico three times (both league center meets as well as the Chico Autumn Invitational). However, the margin was decreasingly with every race and got razor thin a week ago at the league championships where Chico managed to tie the Vikings only to lose due to an inferior sixth man finish.
Girls 3 Mile Championship
The varsity girls were up first. A crowded field of ten opened a sizeable gap on the rest of the field as they approached the race's opening hill. This pack was strung out by the mile mark and subsequently whittled down to two as Shasta's Elizabeth Merrill and Foothill's Jasmine Corliss emerged from a short but steep hill ascent known as Elliot's Revenge alone. These two managed to stay in close contact the rest of the way with both attempting but neither gaining any significant advantage. Crossing the grass field before the track finish, Corliss attempted one final surge, but it was Merrill's counter move upon hitting the track that proved decisive to win going away. Merrill, after losing badly to Corliss in their initial meeting in September, had now beaten her league rival three straight times.
The last mile saw several athletes pay for their hot start, while those that started more conservatively reaped the benefits. Chico's Jeffords, back as far as twelveth early on, used the last mile to climb into 4th, Foothill's Erin Mckinnon, even further back, worked her way up to 6th and Chico's Dot Clemente finished ninth. Limiting the damage after a spirited start, the mile leader Mattie Whipple from Yreka held on well enough to finish third while other members of the early lead group took fifth (PV's Chloe Alchin), seventh (Yreka's Augustine Myland), eigth (Orland's Paris Easter) and tenth (Williams' Isabella Santillan 10th). Early race leader Central Valley freshman Tea Kaizen faded to 14th.
Did this loss of two of their scoring five worry the Panthers for their title hopes? You wouldn't have known it looking at how they raced. As stated previously their top remaining runners, Lilly Jeffords and Dot Clemente did not go out with the lead pack, instead relied on picking off runners as they faded from contention. Sophomore Jeffords and senior Clemente would both made their first foray into the top ten at this year's sections. This was backed up by solid performances by their 3, 4 & 5 runners (Kim Naverette, Claire Edwards and Rosalie Brown, respectively) giving Chico a comfortable 32 point win over league rivals Foothill (2nd) and Pleasant Valley (3rd). To punctuate that point, the fourth scorer for the Panther Claire Edwards passed the number two runners from U Prep and HOPE in the closing 60 meters.
Chico won their section leading 13th overall cross country title with 60 points, an amount doubling their score from a year ago. Runnerup Foothill, after not competing as a team in 2021, finished with 92 points while the Pleasant Valley Vikings ended up a close third with 98 points to give the EAL/SRL a sweep at the section championships. Yreka, the only other team with two finishers in the top ten, took fourth with 115 points. University Prep by placing fifth with 121 point took the D-V title.
There was not quite the logjam at the front of the boy's lead pack half a mile into the race thanks to aggressive pacing of the race favorites Yreka's Henry Baun and PV's Jackson Hein. The field would stretch out the rest of the way as the race became strictly a two man affair during the hilly second mile. Little daylight developed between Baun and Hein until they crossed the long grass field to the track finish as Baun strong measured approach over the races' closing half mile opened enough of a gap to make the superior closing speed of Hein a mute point.
Filling out the rest of the top ten in the boy's race was Enterprise's Elijah Magrini 3rd, Trinity freshman Jackson Poburko 4th, Chico's Charlie Brennan, after contending with the leaders early, lost a late race duel with teammate Carter Murphy as the two Panthers finished 5th & 6th. UPrep's Noah Gaido was 7th with teammate Noah Gaddy 8th. Rounding out the top ten were Chico's Matt Anderson and PV's Mark Doud. In an unusual development, the boys had more freshman (2) and sophomores (4) in the top ten than seniors (1).
Chico's point total of 51 beat crosstown rival Pleasant Valley by twelve points. Not only was this the first time the Panthers had beaten the Vikings this year but by doing so they also garnered a much coveted state berth. The victory marked the 10th section title by the Chico boys and their fifth in the past seven years to nearly match their great teams of the 70's who managed to get 5 titles in 6 attempts. This total titles is only exceeded by Lassen which has accumulated 16 since 1965 but none since 1994. University Prep was a close third with 69 points, Enterprise was much more distant fourth with 132 while Yreka claimed fifth with 137 points.
Like four years ago few seniors were contending for the section individual title or were even considered among the sections best. As it turned out only 3 seniors finished in the top ten for the girls and only one in the boys. Good news for the future years of this race but not so good for this year's. Not surprising that no girl broke 19 minutes or that any boy went under 16 minutes on this hallowed course. Last time it happened was 2019 but before that you have to go all the way back to 1997 when this threshold failed to be reached and even then it was barely missed in both races.
Boys 3 Mile Championship
Chico also dominated in the two shorter open/JV races. The Panther girls, led by race winner Reece Alvistur, placed seven runners in the top ten for an easy win over PV and U Prep the only other schools with complete teams. PV's Justin Plummer, by winning for the second week in a row, added the JV boys section crown to his JV league title. However it was Chico that prevailed as a team by placing their scoring five in before anybodgy else had more than 3 to win 32-53 over runnerup West Valley.
State qualifying teams were Chico (D3), Yreka & Orland (D4) and UPrep (D5). Individual qualifiers not part of a qualifying team were Elizabeth Merrill/Shasta, Jasmine Corliss/Foothill, Chloe Alchin/PV, Erin Mckinnon/Foothill and Alana Hart/Foothill in D3; Tobi Dendas/Enterprise, Magdelana Leal/Corning in D4; Isabella Santillan/Williams, Tea Kaizen/Central Valley, Jenna Justice and Dylan Hanna from Etna, Jennifer Johnson/Durham, Iris Severne and Naava Kroop from HOPE in D5.
State qualifying teams were Chico (D3), Yreka & Enterprise (D4) and UPrep (D5). Individual qualifiers not part of a qualifying team were Jackson Hein, Mark Doud, Mark Velazquez-Patino and Austin Hein all from Pleasant Valley in D3, Stephan Chapdelaine/Live Oak, Owen Collver and Brennan McLuckie from West Valley, Jesse Hicks/Orland in D4; Kyle Cleek/Providence Christian, Owen Severne/HOPE, Jackson Poburko and Kyle Cox from Trinity in D5.
The state qualifying teams and individuals will be travelling to Woodward Park in Fresno the Saturday (November 26) of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend to compete in the state cross country championships.
