Frosh soph girls certainly started things off with a bang. First place! Mariana Blanding led Whitney with an overall 3rd place finish. Tyler Williams was just a few seconds behind in 6th place. Both girls ran the 2.25 mile course at a sub-7-min per mile pace, which is a very good indication they might be able to break 22 minutes in a 5K. Many competitive varsity teams in the area don’t have a 5th scorer who can break 22. Nice progress, Mariana and Tyler! Also, we had 3 other girls really rise up in this race … Syd Woolley, Ashanti Elie (not just a sprinter! :-)), and Jane Sherman each ran maybe their best race of the season, completing the scoring for our young ladies’ team victory. Congratulations!
Frosh soph boys placed 2nd. James Bowen was our first Whitney runner in 7th overall. Fekadu Cantrell, Brandon Olah, Callum Turner, and Nick Herrmann continue to impress as a very strong and deep freshman class. Our scoring 5 all finished in the top 25, and more importantly in the low 13’s or better (minutes), which is below a 6-minute mile pace for the 2.25 mile course. That is exciting to see, for now and for the future.
In the JV races, our girls were 3rd. Emily Britt ran a season best 5K, finishing 14th. Isabel Simmons and Emma Totaro both hit lifetime PRs for 5K. Kudos to Brooke Giorgi and Kirsten Ransford for pacing these girls to their fast times. Brooke and Kirsten raced with top 7 varsity at Clovis the day before, but wanted to help their teammates. Malana Barnt was able to run her first race of the season; she did a masterful job of pacing to complete her first 5K.
Whitney’s JV boys placed 8th. Lots of lifetime PR’s … Max Sommerhauser, Luca Ruscica, Nick Reis, Dylan DeValk, Seth DeBoer, Bryan Eickmann, Ryan Lew, and Billie Cunningham. Congratulations!
Haley Bedrin hit a 21:15 5K PR on her way to leading our girls varsity team to a 6th place finish. Haley has a chance to break 21 minutes at SFL Finals this coming Friday. Each year at the Flat Sac Invitational, we commonly use this meet to move runners around to different divisions. Freshman Emma Martinez seemed to be able to average 7-minute pace for a 5K, so she ran the varsity race, ended up 2nd for Whitney, breaking 22 and running 21:47. Emily Peterson, Olivia Sauer (new PR!), Katelynne Finta, and Bella Nijmeh (also a new PR!) rounded out the scoring.
We had a couple underclassmen move up to varsity 5K, figuring they could challenge the 17-minute barrier. Sophomore Ryan Hart and freshman Cole Jamieson led Whitney, running 17:21 and 17:24. Malachai Amore, Tyler Hawkins, Cade Schwab, and Brandon Valdez all contributed to Whitney’s 9th place finish. Malachai and Cade both hit lifetime PR’s for 5K.