Every cross country season in mid-September, we make the effort to do an overnighter in the Santa Cruz/Monterey Bay area. For the first time in 4 years, our team got to race at the iconic Toro Park. With the historic heat wave hitting the Sacramento area hard the week prior, this trip ended up being great timing as we left 110 degrees for cool marine layer and race day temps in the 70’s. Plus it was a nice change of scenery, competing against schools mostly from outside our familiar Sac Joaquin Section. And with some team wins and strong individual showings, our runners represented Whitney Distance quite well.
Varsity Boys
The first race was varsity boys. After a couple of local team wins, this would be a good test as to just how strong our guys’ team can be. Mateo DelGadillo led the Wildcats, settling in to pace his team, and eventually moving up to place 3rd overall out of nearly 200 runners. Teammate and training partner Nick Herrmann was 4th, just a few seconds back. And just 5 seconds later came Noah Lopez charging up to grab 5th place. That’s 3 in the top 5, but we weren’t done yet as Callum Turner came across in 7th, and David Hurren placed 12th. Twenty seconds back was Dario Ruscica to place 23rd, and 10 seconds after that was Jaden Rapp finishing. Within a minute, all the Whitney runners were done. Our top 5 were all done scoring before all but 6 teams even got their first runner to the finish line. This was a dominant effort as Whitney won by 66 points.
Varsity Girls
Varsity girls were the second race. Right away, it was very evident St. Francis Mountainview–one of the top-ranked teams in the state–was going to take control as they had a pack of 7 cruising up near the front. But how would our girls do against the rest? Katie Kopec settled into 2nd position for much of the race, which is where she finished. Ava Kopec found herself right in the middle of a whole bunch of St. Francis girls, but as their pack began to fall apart, Ava broke them up and beat all but 3 of them to place 8th. Freshman Jane Landon, running her first varsity race, and Grace Scott both ran tough to place in the top 20; and each broke 19 minutes. Izzy Soto wasn’t too far back, finishing strong in 31st place, ensuring a solid Whitney team score. The Lady ‘Cats place 2nd behind St. Francis, but a decisive 34 points ahead of 3rd place.
Frosh Soph Boys
In a race with exactly 200 finishers, Whitney’s frosh soph boys got 5 scorers across the line in the top 50. Young stud runner Tyler Kubota battled with the best up top and finished 7th place. Freshman Davis Little, in a breakthrough race, finished with fellow freshman Johann Gothold, 25th and 26th respectively. In 31st came first-year sophomore Connor Rekers. And placing 50th to complete our scoring was Tyler Crabtree, with Victor Needham right with him in 51st. Nathan Olah, Keaton McDermott, and Jack Regan all finished within 5 seconds of each other with still well over a hundred runners behind them. Brady Quinn was less than a minute back. James Totaro and Aaron Humphries rounded out our team with still about 50 runners behind them. Our frosh soph boys placed 4th as a team.
Frosh Soph Girls
In the frosh soph girls race, Shay Waters moved to the front early, not because she went out too fast, but because she was setting the right pace for herself. That lead only grew throughout the race, and Shay ended up winning by a very comfortable 200 meters. Working well behind Shay were two teammates, Addison Ewers and Sophie Hutchinson, who are training partners and are finding success pacing with each other in races. Addi finished 3rd and Sophie was 5th. Also running a terrific race was Rae Britton, placing 26th out of 124 runners. Inessa Maldonado placed 70th to complete the scoring as our 5th runner, and Joy McBride displaced runners from other teams to affect the final score, which was an impressive 3rd place as a team. Whitney was within 10 points of 2nd place powerhouse St. Francis Mountainview, and more than 50 points ahead of 4th place.
JV Boys
With such a strong varsity boys team, our depth results in strong JV performances as well. It is no secret the front runners we have in JV races would be solid scoring varsity runners on most teams. Noah Reed is one such runner, taking the lead comfortably and winning by about a hundred meters. A half minute later was Aidan Barkve, followed by Joel Tajiri just a few seconds back, making it 3 Wildcats out of the top 4 finishers. Then came 3 St. Francis Mountainview runners as they showed their strength and depth. Three runners in from both squads would make for a close score. But the next runner, in 8th place, was Brandon Olah, ensuring now 4 Whitney runners in the top 10. But again, a St. Francis runner came in 9th, and another in 14th. Fortunately, Peyton Boyd and Landon Wibbeler were right on his heels in 17th and 18th respectively. Our 7th man was Brendan Whitmore, who should be commended for his patience and diligence returning from a nearly year-long case of Osgood-Schlatter’s, rendering him unable to run for months; but he is on the comeback trail and ran well at Toro Park. Running together were Akanis Surapak, Tyler Herceg, Owen Hinkelman, and Caden Martin, all finishing within 15 seconds of each other, followed by Daniel Malji, all adding to the incredible depth of this men’s team. The close battle with St. Francis ended up as a 9-point Whitney victory. These two teams were so good, 3rd place was more than 60 points away.
JV Girls
We only had 4 JV girls who made the trip to Monterey, so there was no team result for Whitney. But three Lady ‘Cats teamed up for some effective pacing over the challenging Toro course. Kaylee Holyoak, Taylor Bettencourt, and Gillian Kingery worked well together to finish into the top 20. All three runners were within about 10 seconds at the finish. And making her racing debut was Annick Friedrich, who was understandably nervous in her first race, but looked very poised as she mastered the course, well ahead of many runners.
Whitney has a bye next weekend as we tune up for our first league meet in a week and a half. Our goal will be to place at least 3rd as a team in each of the four league races, with some of our squads expected to place even better than that. The team is looking really good!