Sierra #2: St. Lucy’s to the Top and Glendora Rolls

Getting caught up… Tuesday’s second Sierra League meet, run over the 5000 meter course at Bonelli Park, was held under clouds and then under serious rain during the Varsity races.  While this held down the times a little, the competition was completely undiminished, with St. Lucy’s and Glendora posting very strong efforts to win the team races.

In the first cluster meet, St. Lucy’s was missing two of their top 5 runners and ended second to Div. II ranked Ayala.  This time, the 4th ranked Div III Regents had their full team, and they turned the tables on Ayala 39-45.  Soph Krissy Hebb, half of that missing pair, returned to competition with a strong 19:07 second place effort and was joined the meet’s top 10 by juniors Taylor Hebb (4th) and Marissa Horton (8th) and soph Mariah Reyes (10th).  Glendora, on the strength of junior Lauren Justus‘ 19:15 for third place, moved from 6th to 4th in the team results.  Frosh Kelly Kuo again led Diamond Bar with her 20:20 for 14th place – a 22 second improvement that was all the more impressive given the conditions.

The Glendora boys, ranked 8th in Div. II, were easy winners in the first cluster meet, and were even more dominant in this week’s heavy rains.  They scored an incredible 17 points, finishing 1-2-3-5-6 (and 8!).  This week, they were led for the first time by senior Austin Goodheart, a CIF Div II Finalist at 800m last spring, in 16:19, a strong time for the conditions.  He was followed by teammates Anthony Castro – the winner of the first meet, Kelly Hernandez (=PR despite a fall), Austin Mendoza, Neill Netzeband (PR) and Shin Yamamura (PR) in the top ten.

With Diamond Bar’s previous frontrunner James McCreary suffering an off day, they failed to place anyone in the top 10. But they did reach their more important goal of a third place finish. Their 17-18-19-20-26 finish, led by James Powell at 17:23, was good enough to beat out Chino Hills by 1 point! The Damien team had several excellent improvements by their athletes, and their frontrunner John Garcia followed up a nice performance Saturday at Mt.Sac with a 10th place finish.

Team Scores, Top Performers and complete results after the jump

Top Performers and Local Teams.

Boys

1. Glendora – 17…  3. Diamond Bar – 96… 5. Damien – 123

1. 16:19   Austin Goodheart – Glendora – 1st overall
2. 16:22  Anthony Castro – Glendora – 2nd
3. 16:24  Kelly Hernandez – Glendora – 3rd
4. 16:33  Austin Mendoza – Glendora – 5th
5. 16:40  Neill Netzeband – Glendora – 6th
6. 16:42  Shin Yamamura – Glendora – 8th
7. 16:47  John Garcia – Damien – 10th

Girls

1. St. Lucy’s – 39… 4. Glendora – 133  5. Diamond Bar 135

1. 19:07   Kristy Hebb – St. Lucy’s – 2nd overall
2. 19:15    Lauren Justus – Glendora – 3rd
3. 19:17    Taylor Hebb – St. Lucy’s – 4th
4. 19:36   Marissa Horton – St. Lucy’s – 8th
5. 19:54   Mariah Reyes – St. Lucy’s – 10th
6. 20:20  Kelly Kuo – Diamond Bar – 14th
7. 20:25  Katy Hebb – St. Lucy’s- 15th

Complete Varsity Results, top 15 of lower levels and photos are here.