Whitney’s Cross Country Team traveled to Monterey and cooler temps to tangle with some of the best programs in the Central Coast Section. Not only is it nice to get a break from the valley heat, but it is also nice to compete against some unfamiliar teams. On race day, what started off as a peaceful fog, turned into a cloudburst for about 5 minutes during the frosh soph boys race (they thought it was epic), and eventually cleared to some sun but stayed refreshingly cool. The 2023 Jackie Henderson Memorial Invitational featured some record-setting performances, with several of those performances being from our own Wildcats. By the time the day was done, Whitney had set two course records, two school records, captured a varsity victory, and achieved exclusively top 5 team finishes across the board. Only a couple of frustrations on this day… multiple runners were not showing up in the results, and 3 of our top 5 finishes were 4th place finishes, each just a slim single-digit margin from 3rd and receiving medals on the podium.
Frosh Soph Girls
Freshman Camryn Mougeotte led our young Lady ‘Cats with a solid 15th place finish. Sophomore Rae Britton managed the 3-mile course despite a sore hip as our 2nd runner, crossing the line in 31st. Fellow freshman runners Kylee Barrett and the fast-improving Teaghanne Mahaffey both made it in the top 50, with sophomore teammates Inessa Maldonado and Addy Lee finishing in the top 60. Rounding out the squad was a trio of freshmen, Mikayla Yanni, Zoey Rigdon, and Lara de Valk toughing out a challenging varsity course. These young ladies placed 4th as a team, just one point behind 3rd place and a chance to earn medals and be on the podium.
Frosh Soph Boys
Our largest squad of the day was our frosh soph boys with 16 runners. Usual #1 sophomore runner Johann Gothold placed 7th individually, earning a medal and hitting a very respectable 17:22. Nearly breaking 18 minutes was Tyler Crabtree in 22nd place. Already on the track and hooking around to the final push on the football field as Tyler finished was a trio of freshmen, including Luka Roganovic, Ethan Speck, and Zachary Downing. With five runners in, Whitney would have a good team score. Four sophomores were just a half minute back… Nathan Olah, Maximus Kotte, Keaton McDermott and James Totaro, all within 20 seconds of each other, then fellow sophomore Connor Groff came in just a half minute later. A flood of maroon freshmen kept the excitement coming as Evan Leman, Sam Dalmau, and Matthew Byard finished in the top 100 of about 200 total runners, with Cameron Holyoak, Liam Powers, and Irving Birmingham not far behind. Like their lady teammates, our young guys took 4th, and also like their lady teammates, our young guys missed the podium by a slim margin of just 6 points. A great team result nonetheless.
JV Girls
We only had 4 JV originally registered for this meet, as several runners on our team who couldn’t make the trip just happened to be JV girls. Being that we had quite a few frosh soph girls, sophomore Ava Hurren agreed to move up to JV, giving our squad a chance to score as a team. Ava not only helped the JV girls by being able to score, but she placed an incredible 5th place with an impressive 20:16. Senior Kaylee Holyoak was next for the Lady ‘Cats, breaking 22 minutes and almost cracking the top 10. Junior Manaswin Rao made the top 20, keeping Whitney in the running for our first podium visit of the day. Senior Captain Taylor Bettencourt placed 31st, and junior Mykenzie Holyoak was 44th to complete our scoring with still over 70 runners out on the course. After both frosh soph squads missed the podium by single digits, our JV girls broke through with a 3rd place team effort, got some medals around their necks and a photo op on the victory stand.
JV Boys
Our JV boys team was more affected by the timing glitches than other squads. A couple key performers for our top competition were not showing up in the results, as was true for our own Joey Gloria, who was a key scorer for us. At the close of the meet, Whitney was a distant 4th, but that was before the errors were corrected; and then the team results became much more interesting. Top JV runners senior Landon Wibbeler (who won the JV race at the Oakmont meet just a couple weeks prior) and fast-improving junior Connor Rekers were working their way into the top 10 by mid-race. At the end, Connor put on a massive surge and a vicious kick to move all the way up to 3rd place, earning a medal. Landon finished strong too, medaling in 7th. A half minute later came Peyton to finish 19th, and then Joey in 23rd. Juniors Jack Regan and Victor Needham were working in tandem, pushing hard on the down stretch in a crowd of runners, both crossing the line in the top 60. Junior Aaron Humphries, on a bad hip, toughed it out for 72nd. And seniors Caden Martin and Om Patel bolstered the Whitney effort. At first, results showed Whitney in 4th place by about 30 points. But once Joey was inserted, it moved us up to (drum roll…) 4th place by single digits. Once again, a replayed theme for the 3rd time in the meet. Great effort though by our boys against some large and perennially powerful programs from the bay area.
Varsity Girls
In September 2022, Whitney raced at Toro Park in Salinas. St. Francis Mountainview was there with a dominant girls squad. They got all 7 runners in the top 12 before we got our 3rd across the line, winning by more than 30 points. A year later, these two squads came together again for a September match-up. The Jackie Henderson meet preview rightly had SF Mountainview as the top team going in, but did spotlight Whitney as a viable challenger. A couple minutes into the race as the runners made their first pass through the stadium, the announcer commented on how SFM was making a statement with their top 5 packed up near the front. Whitney seniors Karissa Chamberlain and Ava Kopec positioned behind them, while our 3 sophomores, Addi Ewers, Sophie Hutchinson, and Jane Landon found each other and patiently went to work. Senior Grace Scott and junior Lexi Kool were each pacing well to challenge SF’s 6th and 7th runners. By the midpoint, Karissa had caught all 5 SFM leaders and made her move past them all and into 2nd place. Ava passed two of them and was working on the front 3. At the midpoint on the field at the starting line, our 3 sophomores were a little over 20 seconds behind, but gaining. By the time they dropped in for their second loop through the stadium and then headed out for the final pass on the trails, they had whittled that down to 13 seconds. How exciting was it when they all came into view again with 600m to go! Karissa had built a huge gap and was firmly ahead of all SF’s runners. The SF girls had spread out, and Ava was chasing. When the 4th and 5th SF runners re-entered, Addi and Sophie were now just a few seconds behind, and closing in. At the finish line, Karissa placed 2nd after having powered to a convincing 40-second lead over the entire SFM team, who then got their top 3 across, with Ava just a couple seconds later. Addi and Sophie had caught the SF 4th and 5th runners, setting up for an exciting battle to the line. Addi and Sophie were able to outkick both (athletic.net results have it wrong), ensuring a very close score. Jane finished well as the next runner after SF’s 5th. Grace and Lexi completed our team ahead of SF’s 7th runner. It was a razor thin margin of victory by St. Francis Mountainview, coming out on top by a mere two points (36-38). Despite not seizing the team victory, Whitney did achieve the fastest team time, which shattered the course record by a full 5 minutes! More importantly, our girls continue to rise and continue to show they can compete with the best teams in California–probably because they are one of the best teams in California.
Varsity Boys
Similar to the St. Francis Mountainview girls dominating last year at Toro Park, our boys last year dominated with our 5 scorers all among the first 12 across the finish line, winning by more than 60 points. But the 2022 edition of Whitney varsity boys was a 4th place state team and then graduated 5 of the 7 from that squad. How would the new line-up do in 2023? The two non-seniors from last year are now senior leaders… Noah Lopez and David Hurren. Both have been running very well, and both placed in the top 6 at Jackie Henderson. And although the rest of the team didn’t quite finish all in the top 12, all of our scorers crossed in the top 30, which was good enough for a team victory for the second consecutive year in Monterey. Seniors Noah Reed, running a terrific race, was our 3rd man, with senior Joel Tajiri and junior Tyler Kubota each finishing in the top 30, and seniors Ty Ertel and Perry Hutchinson–beating the 4th man of every team except SFM–were only a few seconds back. Congratulations to our varsity boys for claiming the team victory.
Whitney follows up the Monterey meet with a bye weekend to gear up for SFL League Meet #1. As always our focus will be to place no worse than 3rd in team scoring for each of the four league races. With a top 3 finish, any squad is set up for a “winner-take-all” scenario at SFL Championships October 28. For league meets, there is no JV as all upper class runners race varsity. We have a good shot of placing higher than 3rd with a couple of our squads, which is tough to do in this powerful league.