The Tom Laythe Invitational is our largest invitational of the year, with 90 teams competing. The only meet bigger than this one will be Subsections where every team in the Sac Joaquin Section competes. This meet is run on the iconic Willow Hill course, which is the site of SJS Section Championships in November.
Frosh Soph Boys
Due to the size of the meet, the frosh soph boys were run in three separate races: large school, small school, unlimited. Whitney had 10 runners in the large school race, composed of a mix of our top freshmen and sophomores. This race is always a tough one because many of the frosh soph runners are varsity runners, running age-pure for this meet. Sophomores Davis Little, Tyler Crabtree, and Simon Aragoza, as well as top freshmen Luka Roganovic, Ethan Speck, and Zachary Downing ensured a good score for Whitney by all placing between 48th and 75th out of 200 runners. With Sophomores Maximus Kotte, Nathan Olah, and James Totaro providing the depth, Whitney placed 7th in the loaded race.
Frosh Soph Girls
In most races this season, freshman Eva Soto and sophomore Ava Hurren have provided a very effective 1-2 punch. Also emerging has been an equally effective 3-4 punch with freshman Camryn Mougeotte and sophomore Rae Britton, both very much improved runners. Eva and Ava were able to work their way into the top 10 while Camryn and Rae both crossed the line in the top 25. Freshman Kylee Barrett, our 5th runner at the league meet, was joined by the sophomore training duo of Addy Lee and Inessa Maldonado, as well as fast-improving freshman Teaghanne Mahaffey; all four finished within 10 seconds of each other and ensured our final scorer and two displacers were all in the top 60. The strong Whitney effort was bolstered by the freshman trio of Zoey Rigdon, Lara de Valk, and Mikayla Yanni. Great performance by our frosh soph girls as they placed 3rd as a team.
Frosh Soph Boys – Unlimited
After fielding a full team in the frosh soph large schools race, we still had 10 runners in the unlimited race. Sophomore Keaton McDermott had a breakout race at this meet a year ago, and had another big day, this time right alongside fellow sophomore teammate Connor Groff, crossing together in 13th and 14th place to lead the Wildcats. Another very improved runner, freshman Matthew Byard, was 3rd man, placing 28th. Next was a trio of freshmen, Sam Dalmau, Evan Leman, and Liam Powers, all finishing in the top 50. Michael Matthews and Cameron Holyoak weren’t too far behind, followed by Maddock Su and Irving Birmingham, all freshmen working hard to ensure a strong team showing. Whitney placed 4th as a team.
Varsity Girls
Through the first 5 meets this season, the Whitney Varsity Girls had not been beaten by any Sac Joaquin Section team. But as this 90-team showcase event approached, would the Lady Wildcats be able to maintain that perfect record? That answer came fairly quickly as there was quite a bit of maroon near the front early in the race, with little doubt our girls would improve on that positioning as our runners typically don’t relinquish their place in a race. Sophomore Sophie Hutchinson had a certain look that she wasn’t messing around. She climbed past numerous runners in the lead pack to power into 4th place and an incredible 18:58 over the very challenging 5K course; this result puts Sophie on the all-time Willow Hill list. Also running incredibly well was fellow sophomore Addi Ewers, placing 5th. It was at last year’s section championships when senior Grace Scott ran the race of her life on this course and was the biggest reason Whitney won a section title; Grace came in 6th (same as section finals last year), just four seconds behind Addi. Senior Ava Kopec ensured 4 ‘Cats in the top 10 as she crossed in 9th. Junior Izzy Soto and sophomore Jane Landon were 5th and 6th for Whitney, both finishing in the top 20 of 170 runners. Only Davis and Rio Americano got their 5th runner in before our 7th runner, which was Senior Sophie Bowen, who would have been a top runner for every other team in the race. Whitney preserved the undefeated record in the Sac Joaquin Section in dominant fashion, scoring just 31 points while no other team managed under 100 points.
Varsity Boys
Over 250 runners raced the large schools varsity boys race. Senior David Hurren once again led the way for Whitney, posting a very solid 16:29 for 16th place. Training partner senior Noah Lopez, coming off illness, managed a tough sub-17 time for 27th. Ten seconds later began a swarm of 5 maroon jerseys within a 13 second spread. This quintet was led by junior Jackson Geiselman, followed by seniors Ty Ertel, Joel Tajiri, Perry Hutchinson, and Noah Reed, all in 17:20 or less which is very strong for this course. One of our top JV runners, senior Landon Wibbeler ran up for this race and showed he deserved the chance, nearly breaking 18 minutes. Juniors Connor Rekers and Tyler Kubota–not 100%, due to illness–provided the depth in helping the squad place 3rd as a team.
JV Girls
Sometimes it is difficult to field a JV girls team, simply due to numbers, as 5 are needed to score as a team. We had exactly 5 for this race, led by last year’s section championship JV runner-up, junior Alishia Elie. Alishia placed 7th, followed by senior Kaylee Holyoak and junior Mandy Rao, finishing 17th and 18th respectively. Senior Captain Taylor Bettencourt (38th) and junior Mykenzie Holyoak (42nd) made for an impressive 4th place team result.
JV Boys
Nearly 200 runners lined up for the boys JV race. Our top two JV runners ran the varsity race, so senior Peyton Boyd took over the lead role, placing 25th. Senior Joey Gloria crossed the line a half minute later. The bulk of our scoring came from the next four runners, all juniors (Jack Regan, Maxwell Bowen, Aaron Humphries, Tyler Nordquist), ensuring our scoring five were all in the top 75. Caden Martin and Carter McBride, both seniors having their best season, came in with junior Om Patel and senior Akanis Surapak, as Whitney’s JV squad took 7th as a team.
Whitney Cross Country now takes a bit of a break from racing. We have a bye weekend coming up, then varsity 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.