The SFL Dual Meet Series took an interesting turn as our “cross country” race was actually a 3200m track race. Due to the difficulty during the pandemic of securing race venues, host Oak Ridge did a terrific job of providing our league runners a race day, even if not on trails.
Once again we had four races and once again Whitney won all four team competitions. As strong as our scoring has been, the SFL competition gets very difficult very quickly, especially for our girls. Next week at Del Oro, Whitney will face Oak Ridge. The Oak Ridge girls team is ranked #1 in the entire section, all divisions. And most rankings have them in the top 3 in NorCal. Their elite talent goes far deeper than their scoring 5 and are favored to easily capture a league title as well as section title if postseason had not been canceled. But our girls have been performing really well, and we expect to be ready for the big test this Saturday.
This past Saturday, Feb 13, started off with lingering rain, which stopped before the first race began. Conditions ended up being very good for race day.
Frosh soph girls were the first race at 9am sharp. As is typical, our girls settled into their pace, letting the Folsom runners take the lead. Freshman Sophie Bowen is proving to be a very capable pace setter for our young runners, and for the 3rd week in a row led the Lady Wildcats. As she moved to the front, one by one our other runners passed the Folsom girls behind her. Fellow freshman Mikaela Pock had a great day, as Sophie and Mikaela went 1-2. Sophomores Ashanti Elie (great race for her!) and Tyler Williams (first race for Tyler) were next in 3rd and 4th, followed by freshman Katie Hart who really serged strong in the second half of the race. That made for a scoring sweep, and a perfect score of 15. Sophomore Maddie Kelly ran really well overall for a 7th place finish. And fellow sophomores Jane Sherman and Emma Carlson as well as freshmen Taylor Bettencourt and Zoe Cloud each worked hard to pass a couple of Folsom runners in the second mile. Nice job ladies!
Whitney’s frosh soph boys continue their strong season, even though we moved 3 top sophomores up to run in the varsity race. Sophomore Jaden Rapp and freshmen Joel Tajiri, David Hurren, and Anthony Berg paced along with sophomore Cole Jamieson (first race for Cole) formed an impressive pace pack of 5. The only question would be which of our guys would win. That ended up being Joel, with a fantastic final lap, followed by a great finish by Anthony in 2nd, Jaden in 3rd and David in 4th. Cole did a terrific job as a teammate chattering up his guys to push hard throughout. Thanks Cole for the teamsmanship! Such a huge ingredient to our program’s success. Freshman Noah Lopez was just a few seconds off that lead pack and finished 6th before the first Folsom runner crossed. All 6 of our top finishers broke 12 minutes by a good margin. Sophomore Aidan Barkve and freshman Brendan Whitmore were in the top 10, nearly breaking 12. Sophomore Nick Nottoli and freshmen Noah Reed, Landon Whitmore, and Michael Payan all broke 13. Just a couple seconds off that mark was Peyton Boyd, who had a gutsy race tracking down and eventually passing two Folsom runners in the final 800. Sophomore Tyler Herceg and freshmen Charlie Peek and Akanis Surapak rounded out a great day for the Wildcats.
Next up were the varsity girls. The plan for top runner, sophomore Katie Kopec, was to set a pace for 12-flat, and so it wasn’t long before she was leading the field and eventually won, running controlled and right on pace for all 8 laps. Freshman Ava Kopec tethered off her older sister to pace early, followed by always-consistent senior Jessica Becker with a 3-pack of Folsom runners. One of them moved up to challenge Ava, but once Ava sensed it, she pulled away to finish a strong 2nd in 12:15. Jessica had a good battle with the two Folsom runners, beating them both for 4th, and running 20 seconds faster than her 3200m best from last year’s shortened track season. Freshman Grace Scott was able to move up and overtake the 3rd Folsom girl to finish 6th. Senior Kirsten Ransford and junior Natalie Eppler used the buddy system to power through the laps to complete the scoring along with sophomore Mariana Blanding, all placing in the top 10. Only a few runners got into a 3200 race before the shutdown last March, including junior Anna Giorgi who improved on her 3200m mark from last year by more than 40 seconds; senior Olivia Sauer improved by more than 30 seconds. Seniors Haley Bedrin, Grace Pierce, and Cassidy Ransford as well as juniors Cailin Fitzgerald, Rachel Tajiri, Ashlyn Fujioka, and Kylee Wibbeler all put in gutsy performances to add to Whitney’s depth.
Like last week, the most competitive race of the day was the varsity boys. Also like last week with Rocklin, Folsom has one of the stronger squads in the league with 3 very fast runners who would challenge our top 3. It was a great race to watch, and the one thing we knew couldn’t happen was for Folsom to go 1-2-3; in a dual meet, even with our incredible depth, a 1-2-3 guarantees a win as there is no way on points to overcome that. And there was a moment in the race where Folsom’s top runner was pulling away while their 2nd and 3rd runners were just two seconds behind our top 2. That would have meant losing the team competition. Although we did not get an individual win, seniors Byron Chadwick (2nd) and Jason Finta (4th) broke up Folsom’s formidable trio, ensuring our depth would outscore the Bulldogs the rest of the way. Junior Ryan Hart finished 6th, with fast-rising sophomore Teo Delgadillo climbing all the way up to just 4 seconds behind Ryan to finish 7th. Senior Aidan Ransford had a tough race, but still wrapped up a strong scoring top 5 to secure the team win. The sophomore trio was next … Callum Turner, Brandon Olah, and Nick Herrmann, who have dominated frosh soph competition lately, were moved up to run the varsity race so they could experience more of a crowd in their race. They all ran impressive mid-10-minute times, all substantial PR’s. Byron, Jason, and Ryan also hit lifetime PR’s. Juniors Hunter Schwab and Charlie Gioia also hit big PR’s. Junior James Bowen easily broke 11 minutes and nearly equalled his PR. Seniors Luca Ruscica, Max Sommerhauser, and Dylan DeValk, and juniors Levi Chadwick and Connor Jacoby added to the strong finish by the Wildcats.
As mentioned earlier, the SFL competition stiffens by a bunch next week for our girls facing Oak Ridge. Our guys will have a tough test as well. At this point in the season, all four Whitney squads still have a perfect record … each squad is 8-0 overall, and 2-0 in league.