Chico boys, girls both cruise to cross country win over Pleasant Valley Aly Lacko paces girls, Jacob Graber leads boys to easy victories Hooker Oak Recreation Area, Bidwell Park Wednesday October 2, 2013 By DAVE DAVIES-Sports Editor CHICO - When it comes to cross country dual meets in the Eastern Athletic League, Chico High has a tendency to dominate. That was the case Wednesday at Bidwell Park's Hooker Oak Recreation Area, where Pleasant Valley hosted their crosstown rivals only to see Chico come away with a sweeps in both the varsity girls (15-45) and varsity boys races (15-50). Chico's domination in the varsity races didn't carry over the JV races where Pleasant Valley boys knocked off Chico 26-29. Junior Aly Lacko, finally rounding into shape after a summer training injury, took top honors for the Panther girls the first time this year. The even more dominant Chico boys were led by junior Jacob Graber, who has been the Panther's top runner this fall. Aly Lacko led a Chico sweep of the top five spots in the girls race with a time over the 3.1-mile course of 21 minutes, 5 seconds. "I was just trying to keep with the pack, but we were kind of spread out in the beginning of the race," Lacko said. "But I haven't been doing so well this season, so my main goal was trying to be in the top five and go out with those girls. But I felt good this race." Rounding out the top five in order for the Panthers were Malene Kavanagh (21:26) in second, followed by Celeste Wilson (22:08), Georgina Quinn (22:09) and Jessalynn Ayars (22:10). PV's Sacha DeLong (22:37) lead the Viking effort coming in sixth. She was followed by teammates Nicole Dully (22:45) and Bryn Lawrence (22:49) in seventh and eighth. Gabby Pero (25:12) finishing in 13th and Macy Castaneda (26:37) in 17th completed the scoring for the Vikings. "It is a really young team," PV coach Gayle Olsen said. "We don't have many seniors really at all, and we've had a lot of changeover in coaching, which has made a difference as well. So, our JV girls and varsity girls, I think we have about 12 girls total, so when that happens, we look to move up some of our strong JV runners to run varsity so we'd at least have one varsity girls team. Unfortunately, one of the varsity players got injured, another one that we brought up is injured, and then Fran Vecere, who's kind of our lead varsity girl, is out real sick. So it left us (with a very green) varsity girls team." Jacob Graber, leading the Panther effort for the fifth time this fall, won the 3.1-mile boys race in 17:00. The Panthers captured the first seven spots, with efforts from Andris Molina (2nd-17:32), Adrian Gomez-Mora (3rd-17:37), Hector Damian-Siordia (4th-17:41) and Benton Miller (5th-17:49) rounding out the Chico scoring. "We went out (hard) and our goal was to stay as a pack, and go through the first mile at a 5:30 pace, and then work it out as a race (from) there, and push each other up the hill," Graber said. "And then on the way back down in the second part of the race, just have your own race and go for it. It was good." Chico's Liam Hays took sixth and Liam Monninger finished seventh. "We have a pretty good group," Chico coach Kevin Girt said. "We've been doing well in our invitationals, and as you can see probably if you looked at the results, is we really have great packs. Both our girls team and our boys team run together really, really well as a group. And so, when you have a one through five split on the girls that's less than a minute, and a one through seven split that's less than 40 seconds on the guys, that's a success. That's exactly what we hoped to have happen, and we're very happy as a coaching staff with that." The Viking boys took the eighth through 12th spots with Tony Hubbell (18:40), Shayne Morrissey (19:12), Masen Becerril (19:20), Taylor O'Brien (19:22) and Trevor Bustamante (19:49). "Our boys team, we've got some good, strong runners, but we've got a lot of new guys on the team, a lot, and so they're just kind of getting their feet wet right now," Olsen said. "They're strong runners, they're going to be great come the middle, end of the season. I think we're going to see a lot of progress with them, but like I said, it's all new to them, and so they're figuring it out." Additional  photos and some editing provided by Tom Cushman