It’s strange, the way natural disasters filter down into daily life—one big way it’s affected our local athletes is the impact the fires had on the CIF Cross Country Prelims, held Saturday at Mt. San Antonio College (Mt. SAC). The college is located near the junction of the 57 and the 10, which wasn’t all that far from the Yorba Linda and Corona fires (for a detailed map of current fire zones, check out this LA Times map).
As a result of those conditions, the race course was changed from the familiar 2.9-mile course (which as I understand it has remained virtually unchanged for a decade) to a 2.25-mile course that none of the runners had ever seen before. Four heats were run in Division 1, with the top four teams from each heat qualifying to compete in the CIF Final next Saturday.
In the girls’ races, Millikan finished 8th and Wilson finished 9th in their heat, and Poly finished fifth in theirs, just outside of qualifying. A silver lining for the Jackrabbits was the stellar performance of Dynasty Gammage—the sophomore phenom qualified as an individual by finishing third in the race, so she’ll get to run again next week.
The top 14 times for Moore League girls’ runners were:
Dynasty Gammage LB Poly 12:40
Elliott Gentile LB Poly 13:16
Rachel Pavey LB Poly 13:21
Janelle Stribling LB Poly 13:26
Haley Kirk Wilson 13:27
Paisley Pettway Millikan 13:34
Kassandra Delgado Millikan 13:39
Emily Welsch Wilson 13:56
Lupe Ulloa Millikan 14:00
Christina Kirchhoff Wilson 14:07
Alexis Leyba LB Poly 14:08
Amanda Hill Millikan 14:11
Jessica Brock LB Poly 14:19
Jeanette Ortiz Millikan 14:21
In the boys’ races, Wilson and Poly both qualified, finishing fourth and third in their heats, respectively, while Lakewood finished ninth and Millikan finished in fifteenth. Turning in a solid performance for Wilson was Edwin Rodriguez, with a time of 10:47—with the finish, and his team’s qualifying for CIF, Rodriguez moves one step closer to running at the state championships at Fresno, which he said was his dream after the Heartwell Park league meet.
The top 14 times for the Moore League boys were:
Edwin Rodriguez Wilson 10:47
Chris Penn LB Poly 10:54
Carl Price LB Poly 10:56
Andrew Godsil Wilson 11:02
Sean Franklin LB Poly 11:05
Daniel Stuver LB Poly 11:05
Tanner Ruegg Wilson 11:06
Sean Price LB Poly 11:11
Ryan Renfrew LB Poly 11:17
Sean Graham Lakewood 11:19
Conor Stevens Wilson 11:26
Gilberto Martinez Lakewood 11:32
Kamren Robinson Wilson 11:33
Jacob Echeverry Lakewood 11:34
With so many teams from all over the Southern Section there, it’s to be expected that some were more affected by the fires than others, and Poly girls’ coach Nate Bershtel said that some had made the trip up the 57 just before fires closed it, while others were unsure whether their houses had been burned or not. “Our girls were disappointed they didn’t qualify,” he said. “But that helps to keep things in perspective.”
Coach Bershtel, who provided most of the information in this article, said that the Moore League coaches and athletes will be keeping their thoughts and prayers with the nearby athletes and families whose lives were directly affected by the fire.