The Tom Laythe Invitational is our biggest invitational of the year, with around 90 teams competing. The only meet bigger than this one will be Subsections where every team in the Sac Joaquin Section competes. The Tom Laythe meet is a section course preview, as Willow Hills will be the site of SJS Section Championships in November.
Frosh Soph Boys
With so many schools registered for this meet, meet organizers had to split the frosh soph boys into three races: large school, small school, unlimited. Whitney had seven in the large school race, including Johann Gothold and Davis Little leading the way, both placing in the top 50 out of well over 200 runners. Connor Rekers was less than 10 seconds back, and less than 20 seconds after that were Maximus Kotte and Victor Needham, so all 5 scorers were across the finish line within a half minute of each other. But the maroon jerseys kept coming as Tyler Crabtree and Simon Aragoza were not far behind. The team placed 12th in team scoring.
Frosh Soph Girls
Our reliable 1-2 punch of Addison Ewers and Sophie Hutchinson, as they so often do this season, paired up to place in the top 10 to lead Whitney. Kayla Mougeotte was our #3, finishing in the top 40, with Rae Britton just about 10 spots back. Ava Hurren, doing a great job patiently working her way back from a broken foot, was our 5th runner. Inessa Maldonado, Addy Lee, and Joy McBride also ran well in a good team effort to place 4th.
Frosh Soph Boys – Unlimited
We have a large contingent of freshman and sophomore boys, so even after fielding a full team in the frosh soph large schools race, we still had 10 runners in the unlimited race. In a breakthrough performance, Keaton McDermott took to the front of all of his teammates and led Whitney, placing 14th overall. Maxwell Bowen was just 4 seconds back in 16th. Jack Regan, Lucca Bianotti, and Nathan Olah raced near each other to all finish in the top 30. Always-improving James Totaro was next, nearly cracking into the top 50. Aaron Humphries led the next Whitney trio, with Daniel Cho and Christian Clark just a few seconds behind. And Jack Sponder ran really well considering he wasn’t feeling 100%. Great show of depth by our frosh soph boys, placing 2nd in team scoring.
Varsity Girls
With the same line-up as last week at Jessup, our top girls showed up on a big stage and gave a great performance. Last week, Ava Kopec split the top two St. Francis runners, but this week she finished ahead of all St. Francis runners, placing 4th overall. Jane Landon continued her impressive season as a freshman running varsity, and finished 11th, nearly breaking 20-minutes on this notoriously difficult 5K course. Solid and consistent Grace Scott placed 25th, and Shay Waters toughed it out with sore shins to place 31st. The trio of Izzy Soto, Alishia Elie, and Sophie Bowen finished just a few seconds from each other, all in the top 50. Even with the heightened level of competition, our front 7 were all in with 70% of the runners still on the course. The team achieved an impressive 2nd place finish among much of the region’s best talent.
Varsity Boys
Over 200 runners lined up for the large school varsity boys race. There were a few top programs we hadn’t seen yet, so it would once again be a test for our top guys. Mateo DelGadillo and Nick Herrmann, as they have all season, paced side by side as they settled in early, then moved up as they navigated the difficult two loop course. Mateo finished 3rd overall in a very impressive 5K time of 16:22. What makes it impressive is, first of all, it is not easy covering Willow Hills in the low or even mid 16’s, but the fact that Mateo hit a lifetime PR means he may be on target to break 16 on a more reasonable course. Nick went 16:32 for 6th place, and Noah Lopez also broke 17, going 16:59 and placing 16th. Callum Turner and Jaden Rapp wrapped up the scoring for Whitney, both finishing in the top 30. Dario Ruscica toughed out a solid effort, despite not feeling his best (one of several fighting a bug that seems to be making its rounds on the team). The Whitney boys kept the undefeated streak alive one more week, winning the race by 26 points.
JV Girls
With our JV girls being a small squad, we bolstered their numbers by adding a couple sophomores to the squad, hoping to yield a team score. But as luck would have it, the bug making its way through the team seems to have hit the JV girls squad as hard as any other group. Even with the sophomores added to the squad, only four runners were healthy enough to cover the course. Kaylee Holyoak led the team with an 8th place finish. Sophomore Manaswin Kotte ran really well, just 3 seconds and 3 places behind Kaylee. Fellow sophomore Eliana Nichols finished 3rd for Whitney in the top 20. And Annick Friedrich showed that she is getting stronger and more confident, running maybe her best race of her season, and did it on the toughest course. Each of these 4 ladies gave a great effort, but unfortunately without a 5th runner there was no team score.
JV Boys
Whitney certainly has enough numbers on the guys’ side of JV, with 12 runners completing their race. Noah Reed, who was part of the 1-2-3 sweep of Whitney JV runners just a week ago at Jessup, took full control at Willow Hills, leading much of the race all the way to the finish line. Moving sophomores up to JV is something we often do in the second half of the XC season, and so top sophomore Tyler Kubota got a chance to run with the upper class guys. He started off conservatively, then climbed up the ladder of many runners all the way to 2nd place behind Noah. Aidan Barkve and Brandon Olah both placed in the top 10, proving once again our JV each week is tough to beat. Landon Wibbeler almost made it into the top 10, placing 11th, with teammate Peyton Boyd three seconds behind in 14th. Joey Gloria was next, continuing to get stronger each race. Joel Tajiri, one of several Whitney runners under the weather (or recovering from being under the weather) showed his determination in finishing the race that was not his best time. Akanis Surapak finished with still 50 runners on the course, just ahead of Tyler Herceg who hit a course PR. Owen Hinkelman and Carter McBride made it a full dozen maroon jerseys across the line. Whitney JV, just like the varsity, came away with a team victory.
Whitney Cross Country now takes a bit of a break from racing. We have a bye weekend on October 8th, then varsity only travels to Clovis for a state meet course preview at Roughrider Invitational. The following weekend is Flat Sac for everyone not going to Roughrider. After that, it’s championships and postseason.