Viking boys, Panther girls prevail at unique format Chico Autumn Invitational
PV's Jackson Hein, Chico's Ava-Marie Csutoras break away to top competitive fields

Saturday October 15, 2022
Photos & story by Tom Cushman

CHICO, CA -- Cross country returned to the Hooker Oak Recreation Area for the spectator friendly Chico Autumn Invitational, a race put on by Chico High's head coach Kevin Girt. Early races were on the cool side but conditions heated up by the mid afternoon running of the top varsity races. Like previous years, the varsity top seven are split into two groups with the top three of each squad in one race and a remaining four in another to give these mid pack runners a chance to win a race. Scoring combines the results of the two varsity races. Part or all of 29 teams in this year's running of the event. In addition, middle school competition saw an additional ten teams.

In the varsity competition, the Panther girls claimed first place with 32 points as they had three finishers in the top seven, led by sophomore Ava-Marie Csutoras who turned in a meet-winning time of 20:30. PV's senior Chloe Alchin claimed second ahead of another Panther sophomore Lillian Jeffords in third with a time of 20:40. Solidifying the win was senior Dot Clemente seventh-place finish of 21:20 to give Chico three runners in ahead of all but one of runnerup River Valley's runners.

In the varsity girls 1-3 race, Clear Lake junior Hannah Garrity was the early race leader. She enjoyed a relatively comfortable lead over the first half of the race until taking a wrong turn near the two mile mark and ended up finishing in 21st place. In the 4-7 girls race held about an hour earlier, Chloe Metz-Thompson of Nevada Union pulled away from Enta's Jenna Justice to become the fourth varsity runner on the day to finish under 21 minutes.

In the varsity boys races, PV sophomore Jackson Hein used a well timed late surge to pull away from Cosumnes Oak's Matthew McDonald and Lincoln's Jaden Trujillo to win in 16:34. McDonald was the early race leader and the senior kept the lead for nearly two miles before relinquishing it to Hein. Hein's lead though was minimal until popping a gear neither McDonald or Trujillo could match with about 150 meters to go.

Backing up Hein's win were Mark Velazquez-Patino (11th-17:27), brother Austin (17th-17:58) also running in the 1-3 race while sophomores Mark Doud (13th-17:38), Nolan McLaughlin (14th-17:53) coming from the earlier 4-7 race.

Runnerup Chico showed good resilience with Charles Brennan (5th-16:53) and Matt Anderson's (10th-17:26) season best performances offsetting a tough day by their normally number one runner, Carter Murphy (6th-17:04).

Rounding out the top ten where Trinity freshman Jackson Poburko (4th-16:51), River Valley's Eddie Jensen(7th-17:08), Nevada Union's Eddie Jensen (winner of the 4-7 race in 17:09) and U Prep sophomore Noah Gaido (9th-17:16).

In the frosh/soph boys race, Nevada Union won over Chico and Pleasant Valley while in the girls race (technically a JV/Open race since juniors & seniors were allow to run) Chico was the easy winner over Pleasant Valley and Lincoln.