The Rowland boys and Covina girls entered 2018 favored in the Valle Vista League, and confirmed that in the first two cluster meets. Both teams closed the deal on Wednesday with two wins in the Valle Vista Finals held on the rolling 3-mile course at Bonelli Park in San Dimas.
The San Dimas Girls Claim the Big Trophy. VVL Champ Katelyn Vuong is to the right of the trophy. Coach Andrew Tachias is the one with the beard
The Championship Finals followed the same finish order from the last cluster meet. On the girls side, Covina’s  Katelyn Vuong pushed back a good challenge to win in 19:06 from Rowland’s Supriya Rawal – 2nd/19:19 and Dana Hernanez – 3rd/19:27. But their efforts up front were not enough to overtake Covina’s 44 points, who clinched with an 8-14 grouping of their next four, nor were they enough to hold off San Dimas, who moved up to edge the Raiders by two points, 57-59.
The Saints were led by a big step-up from junior Layla Graham, who was 4th/19:36 and a strong 6th/19:47 performance from the team’s usual #1 Caroline Cobo.Â
Wilson also made a big jump from the previous meets, halving the gap to third place, but were still fourth. Senior Daniela De La Torre Garcia led the resurgence, moving up fifteen spots from the second cluster meet to earn the final All-League spot at 7th/20:23.
The Northview team, including CIF qualifier Charlie Arellano.
Northview junior Charlie Arellano had run with the VVL leaders all year, and she will advance to CIF individually with her 5th/19:41 finish.  Baldwin Park was fifth in the scoring, led by Jeffifer Sanchez-Sumano – 31st/25:10.
On the Boys side, Rowland returned to full strength and dominated the race, putting four in the first six to score just 26 points. Baldwin Park junior Eduardo De Paz repeated his early win to take the individual championship in 15:36, His win sparked the Braves to almost overtake second-placed Covina, falling short by just one point – 75-76.
After De Paz, Rowland took four the next five spots in a controlled effort - Rafael Alcarez - 2nd/15:57, John Martinez – 3rd/15:57, Jimmy Lei - 4th/16:16 and Nicholas Acevedo – 6th/16:30. Covina was led by senior Daniel Hernandez – 7th/16:31.
Junior Daniel Pfeiffer – 6th/16:25 earned the final All-League spot, leading Wilson as he had all year. But with the rapid improvement of BP, the gap from Daniel to his remaining teammates was too big for them to move back into a CIF spot. Daniel will move on as an individual.
San Dimas, amazingly scoring three frosh and two sophs, were fifth, led by one of the SGV’s top frosh Raul Burris – 9th/16:35, just four seconds short of All-League honors. Northview was sixth, their best was frosh Aaron Ochoa – 24th/18:07
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