On September 17 at Sunset Whitney Rec Area, our runners rose up and put on a great performance at SFL#1 (and we all know “SFL” stands for “Super Fast League”). Each of our 4 squads either met expectations, or beat expectations at our first league meet of the 2025 season on September 17, so an overall very good showing for Whitney Cross Country.
- 1st = Varsity Girls
- 5th = Varsity Boys
- 3rd = JV (Frosh Soph) Girls
- 2nd = JV (Frosh Soph) Boys
In overall team place combined over the 4 events, only Davis and Jesuit/St.Francis averaged better than Whitney. In summary, our varsity girls backed up their #1 section ranking by winning their race, and our boys proved they’re one of the top teams in D2, which could result in a trip to state this season.
Sophie Hutchinson remained undefeated on the season by hunting down St. Francis’s top new phenom, overtaking her at the midpoint. Sophie broke her own course record by 12 seconds, clocking a blazing 18:07. This is only 10 seconds off the 5K school record, and she did it on a challenging 5K course. Fellow seniors Addi Ewers and Jane Landon, as well as junior Eva Soto and sophomore Kaylee Smith all finished in the top 13 to ensure a convincing team victory. With senior Ava Hurren not available due to illness, sophomore Izzy Leal, running her first race as a varsity athlete, ran very capably as our 6th runner and nearly broke 21 minutes. Senior Rae Britton led the next Whitney group, which included three juniors–two of whom broke 23 minutes–Abigail Speck, Camryn Mougeotte, and Zoey Rigdon. Bolstering the Whitney result were fellow juniors Kylee Barrett, Lara de Valk, and Sophia Jovanoski, as well as senior Inessa Maldonado. Our girls need to win at SFL Championships November 1st to secure the league banner.
Sophomore Josh Landon and senior Davis Little continued their 1-2 punch to lead Whitney’s men to a varsity 5th place finish. Considering Jesuit is #2 in the nation and both Davis and Oak Ridge are the top 2 ranked D1 teams in the section, it was realistically a battle for 4th place. Folsom claimed that spot, but Whitney was able to edge Granite Bay by a single point to wrap up 5th. Davis Little was key in that, as he was a few seconds behind two Folsom runners with 150 meters to go and put on a vicious kick to overtake them which meant two points for Whitney. Also, senior Simon Aragoza, who is rounding nicely into midseason form as he moves up the depth chart, edged a scoring Granite Bay runner by a mere 3-tenths of a second, which was another 2-point swing in Whitney’s favor in the final stretch. It was a true nailbiter that came down to a game of inches. A quartet of juniors ensured our final scorers and two displacers secured the 5th place result. Zach Downing finished our scoring for us, pushed closely by Ethan Speck, Luka Roganovic, and fast-rising Evan Leman, all four within 15 seconds of each other at the finish line. Seniors Nathan Olah, Tyler Crabtree, Maximus Kotte, and Keaton McDermott all broke 20 minutes on the tough course, as did hardworking and greatly improving junior Lharsen Marquez. Fellow juniors Samuel Dalmau and Irving Birmingham were part of the next wave of maroon, along with seniors James Totaro, Connor Groff, and Jonah Nunez, and juniors Matthew Byard, Maddock Su, and Kekoa Mamuad, all reaching the finish line in 22 minutes or faster. In the 23-minute range were three more juniors, Aarav Dalal, Liam Powers, and Cameron Holyoak. And rounding out our varsity men’s team were first-year upperclassmen Andrew Hetrick and Sam Giouzelis. Congratulations to our boys for a solid 5th place result in the Super Fast League!
Our freshman and sophomore runners looked really good too, as sophomore Gemma Scamporrino led the JV girls to a 3rd place finish. Fellow sophomore Izzy Leal was moved up to varsity, vacating a scoring position, but Gemma was up to the task of leading the Lady ‘Cats. Joining her at the finish was fast-rising sophomore Nina Williams, crossing in 13th and 14th respectively. Less than 20 seconds later was top freshman runner Roslyn Hurren, followed by fellow freshmen Mira Annapareddy and Peyton Britton. Sophomores Ava Kruse, Lauren McMillan, Hailey Patterson and Cristina Diego rounded out the strong showing by Whitney. Congratulations Ladies on a 3rd place team finish!
For the boys, sophomore Rylan Whitmore spearheaded Whitney’s JV squad by placing 5th overall. But it was the pack running that got vastly improving sophomores Luke Martin and Liam O’Malley along with promising young freshmen Lucas Rolin and Ary Swamy all within a half minute of Rylan to secure a 2nd place finish for Whitney. These five all finished in the top 25 to beat every team but Folsom. Fast-rising Dante Ferretti and freshman Mason Deeble were next as our displacers, hurting the scores of all but two teams in the race (meaning Whitney’s 7th man was ahead of 6 team’s 5th scorer). Freshman Brandon Goodin continues to show strong improvement, breaking 12 minutes. Finishing in the 12-minute range was a quintet of Wildcats, including sophomores Kellen Levine-Flandrup, Marcus Clinciu, and Brian Hanks, and freshmen Camden Gutzman and fast-improving Ovi Rodrigo. First year sophomore Mohammen Ayyad fronted the next group of Whitney runners breaking 13 minutes, with freshmen Maverick Huynh and Sam Calabrese, followed by sophomores Ethan Stout and first-year runner Braeden Cochenour, and freshmen Joseph Piersante and Mason Chu. Overall a great team effort as all of our frosh-soph boys raced hard to push each other to an impressive team result… 2nd place in the toughest league in Northern California. The future looks promising for Whitney Men’s Cross Country!
We are now into mid-season, and for the next 5 weeks we’re unintentionally adopting a “split squad” format. Not ideal for our team mindset, but it’s just how the meet cancellations funneled us. We’ll be trying a couple of new meets for our younger and developing squads, while our top varsity runners will race at course preview sites, including for section finals and the state meet.