Doug Negrete
Damien has been traditionally strong in our sport, including a trip to the State Meet in 2004, but they fell on hard times in the latter part of the 00’s. The Spartans turned that around in 2010, not only advancing to CIF for the first time in several years, but also qualifying for the CIF Div. III Finals.
They came into the Sierra League‘s first cluster meet ranked #4 in Div. III, but in this league they would face Div. II #7 Ayala and South Hills, #10 in Div. III. The Spartans proved more than up to the challenge with a strong 42 – 61 – 76 margin over Ayala and the Huskies, who took third from Chino Hills on the sixth man tie breaker.
Damien was led by a 1, 2, 5 finish from seniors Tom Ebiner (15:55), Doug Negrete (16:08) and Conor Brandt (16:31) on this rolling, 5000 meter course at Bonelli Park. Ayala was a bit off their game, perhaps feeling the effects of competing in Oregon over the weekend, and South Hills also performed a bit below expectations. The Huskies had Miles Sustayta (8th/16:36) and Jason Diaz (11th/16:42) up front, but the valuable third team spot was sealed by their 5-6-7 men (Matt Holguin, Chris Escobedo, and Julian Moran) all finishing ahead of Chino Hills’ #5.
Rebuilding Claremont, with only one senior in their scoring five, were fifth, led by juniors Jimmy Baeskins (6th/16:32) and Aric Crowell (9th/16:38). Charter Oak was a distant 6th.
Alex Borunda
On the girls side, CIF Div. III #3 South Hills and young, rising Claremont hoped to knock off defending league champions Ayala. The Huskies turned in a strong effort, putting four in the top ten, but the 1:15 gap back to #5 was too big and they finished second to Ayala 34-48. Claremont was just behind South Hills, showing similar strength up front but were done in by a 1:45 total team gap. South Hills was led by strong efforts by seniors Alex Borunda (3rd/19:38) and Sureshni Surendranathan (7th/19:54), frosh Danielle Murrietta (8th/20:06) and junior Carly Sargent (9th/20:15). The Wolfpack, as usual, was paced by sophs Merin Arft (2nd/19:27) and Megan Renken (4th/19:31).
The young St. Lucy’s team was fourth, led by promising frosh Katelyn Breitschwerdt (11th/20:45). Arlin Ortiz Ortega (15th/21:10) was up front for sixth placed Charter Oak.
Complete Results, courtesy of Finished Results, are here.
Video coverage of the meet from Tom Kiss of the SGV Trib group…
Varsity Results and Scores after the jump.
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