It was another hot Saturday for the XC team
It was another hot Saturday for the XC team, and this time they were at the Dana Hills Invitational, run at and around the high school of the same name. Schools are divided into three divisions for this meet, and we competed in D-3, which means mostly CIF divisions 3, 4, and 5. The course is almost entirely flat and downhill and therefore often yields fast times, so it’s a popular course. We have had some good results here over the last few years, and yesterday was no different. In fact, most runners came home with a medal (given to the top 50 in each race) and we had 5 in the top 20 and 2 in the top 5.
The senior boys got things started for us. Jackson Daugherty took 18th place with a time of 17:12. Ryan Watkins rebounded nicely after last week’s tough race, finishing in 18:04 and 33rd. George Little continues to show improvement as he returns from injury, and had a solid outing of 18:26 and 39th.
The senior and junior girls run a combined race for D-3. With Natalie Hammond still out with injury and Gabi Smotrich away on a college trip, only Caitlin Keane and Nicole Parry toed the line. Nicole took 26th with her 22:14 effort, while Caitlin finished 32nd in 22:35, her best result at Dana Hills by over a minute.
With no junior boys on the team, our next race was for the sophomore and freshmen girls. This race would provide the team highlight of the day, as Lexi Watkins and Isabel Miralles finished 2nd and 3rd, with times of 19:26 and 19:32. Across the three divisions, 1343 girls raced at Dana Hills yesterday. Lexi’s effort was 102nd overall, while Isabel’s was 107th.
The sophomore boys were looking for a better day after some challenges last weekend, and they found it. Nikko Sambold ran 18:14 and took 17th, while Alex Hill finished in 19:00 and 36th place, almost a minute faster than last year. Maxx Song also showed significant improvement, taking over 3 minutes off of last year with a 19:52 effort, good for 57th. Tom Zhau keeps getting better every week, this time finishing in 22:24.
The freshmen boys completed the day’s racing. Running under 20 minutes for 3 miles is a good goal for new runners. Nico Barrera and Nikolas Kovtun both accomplished this and more in finishing in 19:00 (18th) and 19:04 (20th) respectively. William Bonitz-Newman finished in a respectable 21:33, an effort similar to that of his last race.
With everyone traveling next week and a non-race week after that, the runners won’t compete again until October 15th. This is our “pink meet” on our home course at UCSD.
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La Jolla, CA 92037
858-453-3440
© 2024 La Jolla Country Day School
Privacy Policy
COVID-19 Prevention Plan
