The Whitney Cross Country Team competed at the 2022 Oakmont Invitational, held at Maidu Park this past Saturday. The format of the meet was fairly standard, with frosh-soph, JV, and varsity. What wasn’t so standard was the distance; this is the only meet in which all runners run a 4K, which is just about 2.5 miles. Forty high schools entered the meet, making for some races that exceeded 200 runners. Whitney came away with two team wins, and two 2nd place team efforts, plus a whole bunch of 4K PR’s.
Varsity Girls
With several upper class girls unavailable for this meet, Whitney did not field enough runners to score as a team. Junior Ava Kopec led the Lady ‘Cats with a 9th place finish in 14:48, which puts her #3 on the Whitney All-Time List. Fellow juniors Grace Scott and Sophie Bowen finished 26th and 53rd respectively, both pretty impressive considering there were over 150 runners in the race. If Whitney had a couple more runners, our varsity girls would have had a competitive team score.
Varsity Boys
Last week at Sierra, our junior boys won and our senior boys won. This week, with all upper class boys combined, there was a lot of anticipation about how we would score, even given the higher level of competition. Seniors Mateo DelGadillo and Nick Herrmann set a good, smart early pace, then moved up in the crowd to finish 4th and 5th respectively. Coincidentally, these two studs also moved into 4th and 5th on the Whitney all-time 4K list. Juniors Noah Lopez and David Hurren worked like pros a bit further back in the pack to climb up to 14th (9th all-time) and 16th (11th all-time), with senior Callum Turner (13th all-time) just 3 seconds behind to finish 17th, rounding out Whitney’s scoring five. Getting all five scorers in the top 20, especially in a race of over 200 runners, is lethal. The team spread (time between 1st and 5th runners) was a mere 35 seconds, also lethal. Senior Jaden Rapp ran extremely well, hitting even splits over the 2.5 mile course, with senior Dario Ruscica off his shoulder, both crossing the line in the top 50. Senior Aidan Barkve and junior Noah Reed were onto the final 100m dash before Jaden and Dario finished their races. Whitney got 9 runners in the top 60, with only two teams getting their 5th runner in before our 9th runner. All of this added up to a very strong team win for the Whitney Varsity Boys.
Frosh Soph Girls
While we were thin with our upper class girls, our frosh soph squad had 13 runners. After coming in 2nd at the Sierra meet last week, freshman Jane Landon patiently settled in near the front before taking the lead and pulling away to a convincing win. Jane’s time of 15:18 puts her at #6 on the all-time Whitney 4K list. Not far behind was sophomore Shay Waters, finishing 3rd in the race, and 12th on the all-time list. Less than half a minute back was fellow sophomores Alishia Elie, crossing as Whitney’s 3rd runner in the top 10, and Izzy Soto placing 11th. Alishia and Izzy are now 16th and 17th on the all-time list. With 4 girls in this frosh soph race moving into the top 20 all-time at Whitney, the future is bright for Whitney’s varsity. And it doesn’t end with these girls, as two of our freshmen kept the maroon swarm going; Addison Ewers and Sophie Hutchinson placed 15th and 18th respectively. Next was sophomore Eliana Nichols who placed 31st. Manaswin Kotte hit a huge 4K PR by almost a full 3 minutes! Freshmen Kayla Mougeotte and Rae Britton each beat over a hundred runners, and sophomore MyKenzie Holyoak took a misstep and finished on a hurt leg, while freshmen Addy Lee and Joy McBride rounded out the formidable depth of our young Lady ‘Cats. The frosh soph girls won the team competition by more than 50 points.
Sophomore Boys
Tyler Kubota put together a pretty impressive race at Oakmont to finish in the top 10 and lead his team. Connor Rekers ran arguably his best race ever as a Whitney runner, running a controlled pace early, and patiently climbing the ladder of runners to finish as our 2nd man. Always-consistent Victor Needham was just a few seconds back to ensure three Wildcats in the top 40. Brady Quinn, Jack Regan, Maxwell Bowen, and Aaron Humphries all hit big PR’s at the 4K distance, with newcomer Daniel Cho not far behind. Whitney’s sophomore boys placed 7th in team competition.
Freshman Boys
This young squad of freshman boys pulled off a bit of a surprise at Sierra, winning the team competition. They proved that was no fluke as they came in 2nd as a team at the larger Oakmont meet. Johann Gothold took the role of lead Wildcat, placing 13th overall. Maximus Kotte, last week’s top freshman, was just 10 seconds back to finish 18th. Tyler Crabtree made it three maroon jerseys in the top 30, with Lucca Bianotti not far behind. And within a second of Lucca was 5th man Simon Araguza, helping the team secure a solid team score. Davis Little, Keaton McDermott, and Nathan Olah showed the depth of the team by coming in just a few seconds later. Christian Clark, James Totaro, and Jack Sponder ran strong races as this freshman boys team has a good chance to compete as one of the top teams in the section.
JV Girls
With our varsity only fielding three runners, our JV had only two. But Kaylee Holyoak and Gillian Kingery each ran extremely well as individuals, even if they didn’t have a team to score with. Both Kaylee and Gillian placed in the top 10, with Kaylee finishing 5th, and Gillian crossing the line in 7th place.
JV Boys
Whitney did have plenty of upper class boys to field a JV team, including three finishing in the top 10 of their race. Brandon Olah picked off runners one by one to finish all the way up in 2nd. Peyton Boyd and Landon Wibbeler finished 6th and 7th, just a couple seconds between them, and both hit sizable PR’s. Joey Gloria, who continues to show major improvement, had the biggest PR of the day at literally 5 minutes! Joey ran 21:17 last year, and hit 16:17 at this year’s 5K, to finish as 4th man on the team. Veteran runner, senior Tyler Herceg also PR’d, and finished as our 5th scorer. And then a whole slew of juniors came in… Akanis Surapak, newcomers Caden Martin, Danial Malji, and Owen Hinkelman, and Carter McBride. With 3 in the top 10 and this kind of depth, it’s no wonder the Whitney JV Boys placed as high as 2nd in team scoring.
Next up for the Whitney Cross Country Team is an overnight trip to Monterey. This will be a nice chance to have some rest and relaxation with teammates, then compete in a region with an array of unfamiliar teams and jerseys to race with.