Angels Camp, CA
The meet at Frogtown was primarily to just advance to the next level. No team titles are awarded til Section Finals. A few of our squads were able to not race all out, while a couple other squads needed to push hard as “bubble teams”, but Whitney XC did really well in qualifying 6 squads and one individual. With 43 runners advancing to Section Championships, only D1 Davis managed more runners of all the large school programs. This marks the most Whitney runners ever at a Section Championship event. Great work, Wildcats!
Below, names of our advancing runners are written in bold type.
Frosh Boys
Not only was Ryan Hart our only individual winner on the day, he was the overall fastest freshman of all 5 divisional races. It was awesome seeing him run smart, settled in the beginning, and then on the hunt. He still had the top 2 BV runners in the final 200m, but ran them down and outkicked them. James Bowen, Charlie Gioia, and Traeger Harrison all finished in the top 35 out of nearly 150 runners. Kudos to Cooper Collier for rising up as a strong 5th man despite still recovering from a chest injury from PE. Josh McMurdo and Hunter Schwab were right with Cooper, rounding out our top 7, which placed an impressive 3rd, and advances to Finals.
Soph Boys
One of our strongest squads … these boys are defending section champions from the frosh finals a year ago, with BV only 4 points behind that day. With Jason Finta being moved up to varsity, the squad may have been slightly weakened, but Riley Carroll has been spectacular as a first year sophomore, and with Max Sommerhauser continuing to improve like crazy and Chris Buck who has set multiple PR’s this year, we have a shot at a repeat. Byron Chadwick, Tyler Hawkins, and Malachai Amore pack ran with Riley to finish together in 8th through 11th place. Aidan Ransford was our 5th man, right behind our lead pack. The team placed 2nd, setting up a showdown with top-seeded BV once again at Section Finals.
Frosh Soph Girls
Some doubt was cast over this team on race day, as #3 runner Haley Kelly was not able to run due to smashing her big toe. But the girls managed a very solid 6th place as a team, to grab the final team spot for finals. As usual, Emily Peterson and Haley Bedrin were our 1-2 punch. Olivia Sauer has been one of our most improved athletes, and took the point where Hailey often runs, with Cassidy Ransford (also rapidly improving) right with her. Ashlyn Fujioka really moved up in this race to finish with Cailin Fitzgerald. These 7 girls move on to Finals.
JV Boys
With #3 JV runner Logun De La Mora out with a persistent soccer PE injury, and a couple other runners not completing the season, this squad was somewhat depleted, making it very difficult to qualify as a team. We do however celebrate Aidan Redding, who ran a very solid race to finish as one of the top 10 overall individuals to qualify for Finals. Aidan will be the Lone Wildcat for the JV boys, and has made it so that the 2018 Whitney XC Team is the first team in school history to have at least one runner in every race at Section Championships!
JV Girls
One of the best individual performances of the day was from Mikayla Barkve. She mastered the Whitney way by setting a steady and manageable pace early on, then patiently went to work. She was around 50th place early on, and by the end had worked up to 5th place overall. Incredible job! Our pack of Sarah Davis, Emily Britt, Katelynne Finta, and Melanie Walsh crossed the line 35th to 39th for an outstanding team score behind only large school powerhouses St. Francis and Davis, for 3rd place. Davis is D1, as the JV races are combined divisions. At finals, all 5 divisions will combine for the JV races. Sophomore Bianca Gill joins Emma Totaro to complete our top 7.
Varsity Boys
Like the sophomore boys, we are a top seed, so we could afford to save our legs a bit and wear our training shoes instead of racing flats. We softened our usual attack, again to save our legs for Finals. Even with holding our guys back to a manageable pace, we still claimed 3rd to comfortably advance. Austin Vasquez did push a bit, running in the front and crossing the line in 5th. Bennett Woodward and Ethan Dodge were 10th and 14th, with Ajani Salcido not too far behind in the top 25, . Josh Tajiri was 5th man for us, coming back nicely from a lengthy knee issue. Jason Finta and Brenden Jacoby round out our top 7 varsity, which has a good chance to qualify for the state meet, if we can finish at least 3rd as a team next week.
Varsity Girls
Another squad that went into Subsections as one of the favorites, we could afford to settle for trainers and not push all out. Grace Lathrop kept a manageable pace to finish 12th overall, running much of the time in the St. Francis pack, which is so heavily favored, they were just doing a tempo run to win easily. Brooke Giorgi was 17th, and Kirsten Ransford followed up her amazing performance at league finals, finishing 3rd for us and 22nd overall. And then our lethal pack … Jessica Becker, Elena Collier, and Natalie Eppler cruised with each other to all finish in the top 30, and Grace Pierce not far behind. Like the boys, our girls have a chance at qualifying for the state meet if we can place at least 3rd as a team at Section Finals. We were 2nd at Subsections, behind only invincible St. Francis, but other top teams were holding back like we were. Woodcreek did not have the #1 and #3 runners race. Vacaville’s #3 runner didn’t race, and Rio Americano’s runners were holding back as well. Those teams will be our main competitors, all vying for the 2nd and 3rd spot behind St. Francis. It should be an exciting (nerve-racking for the coach) race this coming Saturday. Our Lady Wildcats are a very young squad with one junior (Brooke) and the rest sophomores and freshmen. As the season has progressed, and these ladies have developed, other coaches are becoming more and more complimentary of this squad. We’ll see how we finish up 🙂
Section Championships, the most important meet of the year (besides SFL Championships) will be Saturday morning, November 10th, at Willow Hills Reservoir.