Cross Country Pink Meet at UCSD
Cross Country Coastal League Cluster Meet @ UCSD – the Pink Meet
On Thursday the cross country teams battled against their Coastal League opponents in the 2nd of two league meets. This home meet, held in the eucalyptus grove at UCSD, is also our Pink Meet where we support breast cancer awareness and honor those battling this disease. Many spectators and other athletes joined the Country Day runners and coaches in wearing pink. Our 3-mile course is somewhat challenging, with two moderate hills runners must negotiate twice, but overcast skies and a mild day made for pretty good running conditions.
The JV boys began the racing. Steven Shi got the Torreys off on the right foot with his 3rd place finish and did an excellent job pacing himself evenly to finish in 19:08. Dante Carnecchia finished in 22:17 and 17th place. Now that he is healthy, he is improving with every race. Eduardo Palomares wasn’t far behind in 20th place and 22:40, and Tom Zhau was just behind him with a strong finish to come in 21st and 22:52.
The girls race featured the 3rd of at least five, hopefully six, showdowns between Country Day and Parker. While Parker easily dominates the team aspect of this friendly rivalry, at least for now, the battle between the top individual for each team is much closer. So far this season, Parker’s Brooke Trossen has had the upper hand on Country Day’s Lexi Watkins, and today saw a similar result. Lexi’s time of 19:00, however, was 75 seconds faster than last year, and registers as the 2nd fastest time ever by a Lady Torrey. Isabel Miralles, in her 3rd race since a track injury in May, ran an identical time to last year, 20:27, despite suffering from very tight and painful calves the entire race. Ilaria Comfort bounced back from a tough outing last week at Mt. SAC with one of her best races of the year, finishing 17th in 22:46. She was just in front of Nicole Parry (18th, 22:56), racing on the home course for the last time. Completing the scoring for Country Day was Sydney Strawn, another runner who has spent much of the season dealing with injuries but is now improving with each race; she finished 26th in 24:02. Sofia Besharati and Vivian Cai finished in 26:39 and 27:57. As a team, the girls finished 2nd with 57 pts., a nice improvement from 3rd place in the last cluster. They now sit tied for 2nd in the league going into the Finals.
The story of the boys’ race was really between Bishop’s and Parker, who are now tied for 1st in the league after Parker’s victory today. For the Country Day boys, the goal was to take a step forward as we look ahead to CIF. The team result was the same as in the 1st cluster – 4th – but the individual efforts showed distinct improvement. Nikko Sambold led the way with his 8th place finish in 17:43. Getting under the 18:00 bar is a nice accomplishment on our course. Alex Hill was close behind in 18:01 and 12th. Both boys improved a bunch from last year, Nikko by two minutes and Alex by one. Our next finisher, in 25th in 19:10, was Nico Barrera, who was feeling far from 100% today. Nick Kovtun was close behind in 19:16 and 26th. Spencer Dee completed the scoring with his 28th place finish in 19:42, and Dakota Hernandez was right behind him in 19:48 and 29th. Maxx Song was our 7th varsity runner, finishing in 21:02 and 36th as he took his final spin around the course.
The Torreys will race next at the Coastal Conference Finals on November 11th, at Kit Carson Park. Many thanks to all the parents and teachers who came out to support the team today!
