COTTONWOOD, CA - Ideal conditions greeted section athletes upon arrival to West Valley High School for the 31st running of the cross country championships on this challenging storied course. Runners will be competing for eight team berths (one D-3, two D-4, one D-5 for both boys & girls) with individuals, from non-advancing teams, also qualifying if they place in the top 8 if from D-3 & D-5 schools or in the top 12 if their school is D-4. The mild, mostly sunny, light wind conditions also made for comfortable viewing of the four races contested on the day.
Two Yreka athletes dominated the pre-meet talk across the section, senior teammates Henry Baun and Mattie Whipple. Baun had set numerous course records over the course of the season, while winning eight times with three mile or 5K times well under 16 minutes in all but one race. Meanwhile Whipple, although clearly establishing herself as the section's top girl early on, had run unimpressive times until she popped a 17:44 5K in a mid October track race at Crater HS. Since then, she has consistently run under 19 minutes, something no other girl in the section has done even once.
The varsity boys race would be contested first. Rumor prior to the start told of Baun just recently recovered from bad cold and wondering if he'd put plans to challenge the course record on hold. After all he had run 15:26 on the West Valley course a month earlier at the West Valley Coed Invitational and appeared to be in even better shape recently. He certainly was aggressive at the start of the race and had opened up a decent gap approaching the race's opening hill. The lead was 30m just past the mile mark with a chase pack of Trinity's Jackson Poburko, Chico's Charlie Brennan, PV's Jackson Hein and Providence Christian's Kyle Cleek doing their best to stay close.
Boys 3 Mile Championship
Baun looked firmly in control charging up the race's final hill with the chase pack strung out with Poburko, then Brennan, Hein and finally Cleek. Coming off this hill Baun, while maintaining comfortable lead, looked to be in some distress while Brennan had stayed close to Poburko as the duo appeared to be putting some distance on EAL champion Hein, who had fallen behind Cleek.
The race went out of sight for a few minutes before runners would stream across an broad open field in heading toward a track finish. Those watching expecting Baun to emerge first were stunned to see Poburko & Brennan in the lead position, matching stride for stride across this grassy stretch. The Trinity sophomore would hold and subsequently maintain a slight advance all the way to the end to win by a little over a second (15:35.5 to 15:37.1). Next to appear was Hein, who had repassed Cleek and held off the Providence Christian junior to place third in 15:55.9. Cleek held tough to take finish fourth with fine time of 15:57.5 to also make him the fourth runner under 16 minutes.
While able to view the close and finish of Hein and Cleek, a spent (& probably disappointed) Baun stubbles home putting all his effort toward finishing, realizing that the effects of the cold proved too much to overcome as he lost over a minute to the winner and runner-up in the closing mile to place fifth in 16:31.5.
Rounding out the top ten were Chico's Carson Sasaki (16:39.5), easily running his best race of the year, took sixth (He finished seventh in the EAL championships the week before in what was his season best time for the 5K distance. U Prep's Noah Gaddy (16:41.4) pulls away from Hein's brother Austin (16:42.8) and his teammate Noah Gaido (16:45.0) as the trio place seventh, eighth and ninth, respectively. Viking Quentin Clarke closing the gap with this group finishes tenth (16:46.6).
Pleasant Valley, by virtue of having their entire scoring five place in the top 15, comfortably won the section overall team title as only two other teams (Chico, U Prep) had as many as three. Chico hampered by their No. 2 man Matt Anderson's mid race meltdown, not only didn't contend well for the win but fell a few points short of U Prep (the D-5 champion & second overall) in the final standings. Despite losing, Baun's high finish insured Yreka a fourth place finish and state berth as the Miners were the top D-4 team, allowing him one more chance to put an explanation mark on what has been an epic season.
The other D-4 berth goes to West Valley who finished a more distant fifth. Individual qualifiers for the state meet include Chico's Charles Brennan and Carson Sasaki, Shasta's Wyatt DeLange in D-3, Benji Granados/Colusa (qualified but declined berth), Lassen's Brady Johnson, his teammate Rocklin Albonico and Valentin Sanchez of Gridley in D-4 and Jackson Poburko/Trinity, Kyle Cleek/Providence Christian, Stephan Chapdelaine/Live Oak and Ethan Straatmann/Trinity in D-5.
The Trinity sophomore's unexpected win was his first foray under 16 minutes this year and an improvement over his fourth place finish last year. He is the sixth sophomore to win the section championship since the 1970's and was the second fastest to do so on the West Valley course (Tim Nelson 15:24 effort back in 2000 was the fastest). This year's boys race was only the second time where four finished under 16 minutes on this West Valley course at the section championships. The first time this occurred was in 2011.
On to the varsity girl's race where all the drama would in be who would get second. No surprises up front as Yreka's Mattie Whipple, with her face painted with Christian propaganda, opened up 30m lead a half mile into the race. By the mile the lead was at least double over a splintered chase pack of PV's Holly Alchin, Lassen freshman Kimberlee Mckernan and a tighter group containing Chico's Ava-Marie Csutoras, Orland's Paulina Martins and Shasta's defending section champion Elizabeth Merrill.
Whipple, working hard presses the pace going of the race's hilly second mile to further expand her already impressive lead. Behind her, Mckernan has passed a fading Alchin who can't seem to shake a determined Csutoras. Though losing ground with those ahead, Merrill holds on the fifth with Yreka's Augustine Mylan, Martins, Chico's Mira Sidhu and Central Valley's Tea Kaizen trying to close in.
Whipple, possessing a huge lead coming off the final hill, is left with keeping the motivation high in closing out the final mile. After a sizeable delay the rest of the field begins to trickle through as the race for rest of the top ten becomes more interesting. Mckernan has stretched her lead over Csutoras who is now in third after using the hill to pass Alchin. Next a fading Merrill is marginally in fifth but has been caught by Sidhu and Mylan with Martins and Kaizen a bit further back.
Girls 3 Mile Championship
A strong closing mile nets Whipple her first section title in impressive fashion as she notches her first sub 19 time on the West Valley course (18:24.4), a mark that is the sixth fastest ever! Sprinting across the grass field toward the track, Csutoras is able to pull away from Alchin after both make an unseen late race pass of the Lassen freshman Mckernan, who is not challenged for fourth. This home stretch finds Mylan widening her lead over Sidhu as both pull away from Merrill to finish fifth, sixth and the Shasta junior in seventh. Hope's Iris Severne and Kylie Erickson use a strong second half of the race to move pass Kaizen and Martins, who continues a slow fade from contention.
In team competition, Chico's depth makes the Panthers an easy winner, despite only having two finishers in the top ten. However having five finishers in the next eleven seals the deal leaving Chico with the winning low score 47 to runner-up Yreka's 71 and third place Hope's 112. This gives Yreka the D-4 title and Hope the D-5 title, as such giving both state berths. A second state D-4 berth was awarded to West Valley despite finishing sixth overall.
Individual girls who qualified to state include PV's Holly Alchin, Shasta's Elizabeth Merrill in D-3, Lassen's Kimberlee Mckernan, Central Valley's Tea Kaizen, Orland teammates Paulina Martins & Ariana Garcia in D-4, and Williams' Isabella Santillan, U Prep's Isabella Stephenson, her teammate Joanna Mieling, Jennifer Williams/Durham along with CORE Butte's Brianna Hayes in D-5.
Two more races were held on the day, mostly frosh/soph affairs except for upper classmen top in the respective team's top ten. Both races were dominated by Chico, not only in term of winning but also in the number of athletes running. Chico freshman Nathan Gist won the open boys race in 13:05.1 and the Panthers put four in the top five in winning with 24 points. Crosstown rival Pleasant Valley was second with 57 points and West Valley third with 90 points.
The open girls race was won by Chico's Ally Sasaki in 15:47. This was her sixth win of the year. The top three Panthers had managed to miss a late race turn toward the finish but their lead was so big it didn't matter (or change their order of finish just their times).Three more from Chico would finish before somebody from a different team came by. Not surprisingly the Panthers won with minimum low score of 15 points with University Prep second with 72 points and Hamilton City third with 90 points. Chico, if scoring their first five finishers as an "A" team and their second five as a "B" team, would finish 1-2 in the team competition. Great for Chico but a sad commentary on the apparent lack of interest among frosh/soph girls outside of Chico for the sport.
The state qualifying teams and individuals will be travelling to Woodward Park in Fresno the Saturday (November 25) of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend to compete in the state cross country championships.
