Week in Review: Strand, Wolfe crush collegiate record in 3,000 meters
North Carolina teammates better previous mark by six seconds in Boston
Ethan Strand and Parker Wolfe of the University of North Carolina, fresh off top-10 finishes in the NCAA Cross Country Championships, annihilated the collegiate record in the men’s 3,000 meters in the Boston University Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener last Saturday.
Competing on a 200-meter oval that is regarded as one of the fastest in the world, Strand overtook his teammate and fellow senior in the final two strides of the race to record a winning time of 7 minutes 30.15 seconds, followed by Wolfe at 7:30.23.
Senior Yaseen Abdalla of Arkansas and junior Gary Martin of Virginia finished third and fourth, respectively, in times of 7:34.17 and 7:36.09, as the collegiate record of 7:36.42 — set by Drew Bosley of Northern Arizona in January of 2023 — was left in tatters.
“The goal was to come in here and really just see what we could do,” Strand said in an interview posted by letsrun.com. “Neither of us had any idea what today could hold… Just come out, race, try to win… Whoever was going to beat the other was going to run really fast.”
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In Strand’s mind, running really fast meant taking a shot at Bosley’s collegiate record. Torching it by six-plus seconds and moving to second on the all-time U.S. indoor performer list in the process had not crossed his mind.
He said that running 7:34 or 7:35 seemed realistic, but the 7:30 clocking was unexpected.
“I knew the collegiate record was in danger, but when I looked at the clock and saw 7:30. I was kind of in shock,” he said.
Brothers Jaxson and Josh Hoey handled the pacesetting duties for the first two kilometers of the race, with Jaxson leading the field through 1,000 meters in 2:30.49 and Josh passing 2,000 meters in 5:03.75 before dropping out.
Abdalla, who had placed fourth in the NCAA Cross Country Championships in Verona, Wisconsin, on Nov. 23, proceeded to lead the race for the next two laps and he came through 2,400 meters in 6:05.54.
Wolfe, Martin, and Strand were running in second, third, and fourth place at that point in the contest. But Wolfe, the defending NCAA champion in the 5,000 outdoors and the seventh-place finisher in the recent cross country championships, surged into the lead about 75 meters later and the battle for first had turned into a duel between him and Strand when Wolfe came through the bell at 7:03.41 after covering the previous 400 meters in 57.84 seconds.
Wolfe kept Strand, who had finished eighth in the NCAA cross country meet, off his right shoulder around the first turn, down the backstretch, and around the last turn. But he could not repel his final charge as Strand began to make up ground on him shortly after entering the final straightaway and edged past him in the last 10 meters of the race.
Strand, who covered the last lap in 26.47 seconds and the final 400 in 54.45, had lowered his 1,500-meter best to 3:35.60 during track season. But he said during his post-race interview that the 3,000-meter distance might be his “sweet spot.”
He also spoke about how impressed he was with the performance of Wolfe, who had run a personal best of 13:13.61 while finishing third in the 5,000 in the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in June. However, he was unable to run in the Olympic Games in Paris in August because that time fell short of the Olympic qualifying standard of 13:05.00.
“He’s never been able to keep me at bay for that long,” Strand said of Wolfe. “And that shows how strong he is, how much stronger he’s getting over the last half of a race. Like coming up with 50 to go, I wasn’t closing quite as much as I thought I could.
“But I was like, ‘I got this. I got this.’ In my head the whole last 200 meters, it was pretty much me repeating, ‘I got this.’ Because I knew I was close enough where I thought I could get him at the end. We worked together fantastic today.”
Speaking further, Strand added that Wolfe “ran 7:30 today. I can’t wait to see what he runs in the 5k in two months. He’s going to be tough to beat. That’s for sure.”
Welcome to the club: Graham Blanks of Harvard became the fifth American — and the 17th man — in history to break 13 minutes for 5,000 meters indoors when he won the 25-lap event in the Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener.
Racing two weeks after he had won his second consecutive NCAA cross country title, Blanks clocked 12:59.89 to finish well clear of second-place Liam Murphy of Villanova, who ran 13:10.42, third-place Brian Musau of Oklahoma State, who timed 13:11.29, and fourth-place Marco Langon of Villanova, who finished in 13:14.11.
Blank’s time bettered his personal best of 13:03.78 that he had run in winning last year’s meet and moved him to second on the all-time collegiate performer list in the indoor 5,000, as well as to fifth on the all-time U.S. performer list and to 17th on the all-time world list.
Perhaps most importantly to him, it bettered the automatic qualifying standard of 13:01.00 for the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo next September. And as it turned out, it also came in Blanks’ final race in a Harvard uniform as he announced on Monday that he had signed a professional contract with New Balance and would forgo his remaining collegiate eligibility.
“I had a lot of confidence in the middle of that race,” he said in a letsrun.com interview. “But it got a little harder at the end.”
While meeting the automatic qualifying standard for the World championships was Blanks’ top priority entering the meet, he was well aware that Nico Young of Northern Arizona had set the collegiate record of 12:57.14 while running on the same oval in the Boston University Track & Tennis Center in January.
Pacesetter Anthony Camereiri brought the field through the first three kilometers in 2:36.01, 5:13.77 (2:37.76), and 7:51.55 (2:37.78), respectively. He then clocked 8:54.54 at 3,400 meters before stepping off the track.
Blanks found himself in the lead at that point and after coming through 3,600 meters in 9:24.79, he proceeded to run his next three 400-meter segments of the race in 61.79, 61.04, and 61.61.
No one could match that trio of splits and he found himself with a lead of more than 11 seconds over Murphy when he started the bell lap.
However, he lost a little bit of his lead during the final 200 meters as it took him 29.67 seconds to cover that distance, compared to Murphy’s split of 28.60.
Murphy’s time of 13:10.42 moved him to sixth on the all-time collegiate performer list, with Musau going to eighth with his 13:11.29 and Langon now at 13th with his 13:14.11.
“This was way harder,” Blanks said. “Last year was great. I mean I ran a selfish race last year. I didn’t hit the front until two laps to go… So this was definitely harder.”
Victorious opener: Koitatoi Kidali of the University of Oregon, a member of the Kenyan Olympic team in the men’s 800 meters in Paris, won the 1,000 meters in the Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener.
The 21-year-old freshman clocked 2:20.53 over the one-kilometer distance in a race in which the Washington duo of Kyle Reinheimer and Justin O’Toole finished second and third, respectively, with times of 2:21.30 and 2:21.44.
Pacesetter Patrick Forrest led the field through 200 meters in 26.75 seconds, 400 in 53.88, and 600 in 1:21.66 before dropping out of the race.
That left Kidali in the lead and he came through 800 meters in 1:50.70 before running his final lap in 29.83.
Kidali had a personal best of 1:45.25 in the 800 at the start of the year, but he crushed that mark in June when he ran 1:42.66 to place third in the trials race for the Kenyan team for the Olympics.
He finished fifth in 1:45.84 in his first-round heat of the Olympics before placing sixth in 1:46.37 in the second of fourth repechage races.
Two and counting: Sophomore Doris Lemngole of the University of Alabama set her second collegiate record of the year when she ran 14:52.57 to win the women’s 5,000 meters in the Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener.
Lemngole, who had won the women’s title in the NCAA Cross Country Championships two weeks earlier, held off a determined Hilda Olemomoi of Florida during the last lap to trim .22 seconds off the previous collegiate record of 14:52.79 set by Parker Valby of Florida in the NCAA indoor track championships in March.
Olemomoi, who had been Lemngole’s teammate during the 2023-24 academic year before transferring to Florida, finished second in 14:53.84 on Saturday to move to third on the all-time collegiate list.
Pamela Kosgei of New Mexico placed third in 15:00.36, followed by Amy Bunnage of Stanford in 15:00.75 and Emily Venters of Nike in 15:03.54.
Kosgei moved to fourth on the all-time collegiate performer list with her time and Bunnage is now fifth.
In addition, sophomore Bunnage slashed 15 seconds off the Australian record of 15:15.79 set by Lauren Ryan in January in a race on the same Boston University track.
Pacesetter Riley Chamberlain of BYU led the field through the first kilometer in 3:00.84 on Saturday and the second in 6:04.51 before dropping out of the race a lap later.
Venters then moved into the lead and she was in first place when she passed 3,000 meters in 9:04.95 and 4,000 in 12:03.86.
The latter split was three seconds slower than Valby’s 12:00.86 clocking during her collegiate record. But while Valby was well clear of her closest pursuer by that point in the NCAA championships, Venters was at the front of a five-runner lead pack.
Venters led for another lap, but Lemmgole took over first place on the 22nd lap of the race and she never trailed again as she came through 4,400 meters in 13:14.77 and 4,800 in 14:21.92.
She had dropped everyone but Olemomoi by that point in the race and her Kenyan compatriot pushed her all the way through the finish line as Lemngole ran her final 200 in 30.65 seconds, her last 400 in 63.49, and her final kilometer in 2:48.56.
“I didn’t know that I can run this time,” Lemngole said in a FloTrack interview. “But I came here with confidence. I wanted to finish my season strong and I’m so much happy.”
Lemngole’s first collegiate record of the year had come in the NCAA outdoor track championships in June when she ran 9:15.24 in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.
More top-10 marks: The women’s 3,000 meters was not as highly-anticipated as the 5,000 in the Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener, but it produced its share of notable performances. Bailey Hertenstein of Nike won the race in a personal best of 8:45.05 while turning back a quartet of runners who each moved into the top 10 on the all-time collegiate performer list.
After pacesetter Kate Mitchell brought the field through the first kilometer in 2:55.55 and 1,600 meters in 4:40.56, Hertenstein was in the lead when she passed two kilometers in 5:54.02 and 2,400 meters in 7:06.12.
The lead pack consisted of nine runners at that point in the race, but it began to shrink as the pace quickened.
Shannon Flockhart of Providence College took the lead at the star of the 13th lap, but fellow senior Ceili McCabe of the University of West Virginia was in front when she came through 2,600 meters in 7:41.43.
Hertenstein was in second place behind McCabe at that point and at 2,800 meters, but she surged past McCabe midway down the final backstretch and had a comfortable margin of victory over Flockhart, who closed well to place second in 8:45.67.
McCabe finished third in 8:45.97, followed by Margot Appleton of Virginia in 8:46.23 and Silan Ayyildiz of Oregon in 8:46.33.
Flockhart moved to sixth on the all-time collegiate performer list with her performance, with McCabe, Appleton, and Ayyildiz now at seventh, ninth, and 10th, respectively.
Record finally falls: After more than 56 years, the late Peter Norman’s Australian record in the men’s 200 meters was broken last Saturday when Gout Gout ran 20.04 seconds in winning that event in the All Schools Championships in Brisbane.
Gout’s time bettered the 20.06 clocking that Norman had run while winning the silver medal in the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. It also came a day after the 16-year-old sprint sensation had won the final of the 100 in a personal best of 10.17 after running a wind-aided 10.04 in his qualifying heat.
In addition to breaking Norman’s Oceania record in the 200, Gout’s time bettered the world age-16 best of 20.13 set by Usain Bolt of Jamaica in 2003. It also moved him to second on the all-time U-18 performer list behind American Erriyon Knighton, who ran 19.84 in 2021 when he was 17.
Because Gout will turn 17 before the end of the year, this is the last season in which he will be eligible to set U18 records.
“These are adult times, and me – just a kid – I’m running them,” Gout said in a World Athletics post. “It’s going to be a great future for sure.”
He later added that “I have always done what I said I will do. If I said something, it’s on my mind and I am pursuing it until I do it.”
Gout, whose parents are from South Sudan, entered the All Schools Championships with personal bests of 10.31 in the 100 and 20.29 in the 200. He began the year with bests of 10.48 and 20.87.
Dominance continues: A year after an injury kept him out of the European Athletics Cross Country Championships, Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway won his third senior men’s title in this year’s meet in Antalya, Turkiye, on Sunday.
After running within a stride of two of the lead during most of the race, Ingebrigtsen took control of the contest a little more than 19 minutes into it while on his way to a 22:16 clocking over the 7,832-meter layout at Dokumapark that left him eight seconds in front of second-place Yemaneberhan Crippa of Italy.
Thierry Ndikumwenayo of Spain placed third in 23:31, followed by Isaac Kimeli of Belgium in 22:33, Andreas Almgren of Sweden in 22:34, and defending champion Yann Schrub of France in 22:35.
Spain, paced by Ndikumwenayo, easily won the team title with 18 points in the competition in which a country’s total is based on the combined places of its top three finishers.
Defending champion Belgium placed second with 37 points, followed by Great Britain with 39 points and France with 40.
“Cross country is something that I really enjoy,” Ingebrigtsen said in a post on the European Athletics site. “It's very different from my other competitions, there's something special and exciting about around 100 people being at the starting line, going for the first turn.”
He then added that “There's a lot of fighting and pushing and shoving, there's a lot of things that could happen. The course was so challenging and tactical, as well as technical. It's all about using the energy wisely and trying to manoeuvre.”
Ingbrigtsen, who also won senior titles in the 2021 and ’22 meets, was in third place after the first of five loops before running just behind leader Hugo Milner of Great Britain after the second and third laps.
Ingebrigtsen and Crippa were at the front of a six-runner lead pack after they completed the fourth lap in 18:03, but the race for first place was down to Ingebrigtsen and the Italian a minute later. Not long after that, the Olympic champion in the 5,000 began to draw away from Crippa, who had finished 13th in last year’s championships in Brussels.
Victory caps breakout year: Nadia Battocletti of Italy won her third continental title of the year when she placed first in the senior women’s race of the European Athletics Cross Country Championships.
Battocletti, who blew up many formcharts when she finished a close second to Beatrice Chebet of Kenya in the 10,000 meters in the Olympic Games, clocked 25:43 over the 7,832-meter layout after pulling away from Konstanze Klosterhalfen of Germany during the final three minutes of the race.
Klosterhalfen, who had missed much of the track season due to a virus that left her exhausted, finished second in 25:54, followed by Yasemin Can of Turkiye in 26:01, Delvin Meringor of Romania in 26:03, Jan van Lent of Belgium in 26:04, and Mariana Machado of Portugal in 26:13.
Italy won the team title with a 33-point total that marked the first time it had ever medaled in the European championships. Great Britain finished second with 36 points, followed by Belgium with 46 and Turkiye with 48.
Battocletti’s victory, which came six months after she placed first in the the 5,000 and 10,000 in the European Athletics Championships in Rome, made her the first woman to have won U20, U23, and senior titles in the European Cross Country Championships.
“I was thinking before the race that it would be tough,” she said in a European Athletics post. “I ran in Alcobendas (in Spain) two weeks ago, the course is different, it's a more technical course. It's tougher than here. So, it was a good test.”
The women’s race was expected to be a showdown between three-time defending champion Karoline Bjerkeli Grovdal of Norway and Battocletti a week before the meet, but the Italian became the favorite after the Norwegian withdrew due to an illness.
Nonetheless, it was unheraled Manon Trapp of France who led much of the race.
Trapp, who had finished sixth in the women’s U23 race of the 2022 continental championships, had an eight-second lead over a chase pack headed by Battocletti and Can at the end of the first and second loops on the five-lap course.
But her advantage was down to a second when she completed the third loop in 15:39. And by the end of the fourth lap in 20:45, Battocletti was at the front of a five-woman lead pack that also included Klosterhalfen, Can, Meringor, and van Lent.
Trapp was in sixth place, four seconds behind that group, and would eventually place eighth in 26:17.
The race for first place was down to Battocletti and Klosterhalfen by the 22:30 mark and the Italian had a two-second lead over the German a minute later.
After breaking into a smile with more than 100 meters to go, Battocletti had the luxury of pumping her arms in celebration during the last several strides of the race.
In addition to her individual victory, Battocletti was also thrilled with Italy’s team title.
“We made history,” she said. “I’m so proud of the girls. We ran together since childhood, so we knew each other quite well.”
Best of the rest: In addition to the senior men’s and women’s contests, gold medals were awarded in five other races in the European Athletics Cross Country Championships.
Four of those races took place in the U-23 and U-20 men’s and women’s divisions, and the other came in the senior mixed relay race in which Italy, France, and Great Britain were each credited with times of 18:02 while finishing in that order.
Antoine Senard had given France a one-second lead over the Netherlands after the first leg, with Great Britain and Italy another second behind.
Andorra led after the second leg, but that national squad had chosen to run men on the first two legs, whereas the other 10 teams had opened up with a man running the first leg and a woman running the second.
Those other teams also had women running their third legs, and Italy and France were in first and second place, respectively, when Sintayehu Vissa and Agathe Guillemot, completed their carries.
Great Britain was in third place, two seconds back, at that point in the race and it quickly became a three-team duel for the gold medal. However, Italy appeared to have a big advantage as its anchor leg was being handled by Pietro Arese, who had set a national record of 3:30.74 while finishing in eighth place in the men’s 1,500 in the Olympic Games in Paris.
In contrast, the anchor runners for France (Simon Bedard) and Great Britain (Tyler Bilyard) had personal bests of 3:39.90 and 3:38.02.
Italy, France, and Great Britain were basically running in tandem with one another at the 16:40 mark of the race. But Arese took a small lead shortly after turning onto the long home straightaway and he never relinquished it as France and Great Britain finished second and third.
In the other races, Great Britain received victories from Will Barnicoat in the UI23 men’s race, as well as from Phoebe Anderson in the women’s U23 contest and from Inness Fitzgerald in the women’s U20 race.
Niels Laros of the Netherlands, who set a national record of 3:29.54 while finishing sixth in the 1,500 in the Olympics, won the men’s U20 race after being outkicked for the title last year.
Overall, Great Britain won 12 medals during the meet, with six of those being gold medals.
Italy won five medals, with three being gold, followed by France with four.
Different tactics, same result: Loice Chekwemoi of Uganda and Samwel Chebolei Masai of Kenya won the women’s and men’s titles, respectively, in the Great Chepsaita Cross Country meet in Eldoret, Kenya, last Saturday.
The event was the 11th of 17 gold level meets that comprise the World Athletics Cross Country Tour for the 2024-25 season.
The 17-year-old Chekwemoi won the women’s 10-kilometer race in 34:32 while finishing nearly a minute and half ahead of second-place Shimeles Mekides Molla of Ethiopia, who ran 35:57.
Molla had taken the lead early in the second of five two-kilometer loops. But it wasn’t long before Chekwemoi took over and ran away from everyone.
Chewemoi had finished ninth in the World Athletics Cross Country Championships in Belgrade, Serbia, in March before running a personal best of 9:18.84 in finishing second in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in the World Athletics U20 Championships in Lima, Peru, in August.
“I couldn’t believe that I could win in the home of champions but I told myself I am also a champion and I have to fight for it,” Chekwemoi said in a World Athletics post. “To be a champion is not easy but I see progression and I am working hard to make sure I qualify for the World Championships in Tokyo next year.”
Chebolei, 23, had finished fifth in the men’s race in Belgrade, and he was part of a 10-runner lead pack after the first two kilometers in Eldoret.
The lead group was soon reduced to five and it was down to Chebolei and compatriots Robert Koech Kiprop and Matthew Kipkoech Kipruto at the end of the third lap.
Kipruto eventually dropped back and Chebolei had a better finish than Kiprop as his 30:49 clocking left him nine seconds in front of Kiprop, who ran 30:58.
Kipruto finished third in 31:12.
“I had to fight because there were a lot of good athletes in this race, it was not easy,” Chebolei said. “After the third lap, we still felt energetic and the three of us decided to drop the rest and the maths worked for us. I am hoping to build up from here and represent Kenya in Tokyo.”
All-American honors: Seniors Evan Noonan of Dana Hills High School in Dana Point and Eyan Turk of Woodcrest Christian in Riverside were the two runners from the Southern Section of California who earned all-American honors in the boys’ race of the Nike Cross Nationals in Portland, Oregon, last Saturday.
Competing in cold and rainy conditions, Noonan placed fifth with a time of 15:32.7 over the 5,000-meter course at Glendoveer Golf Course and Turk was 18th in 15:45.2.
The top 20 finishers were deemed all-Americans in the race that was won by senior Charlie Vause of Rio Rancho in New Mexico.
Vaause, the No. 26-ranked runner in the nation by dyestat.com, was part of a six-runner lead pack when he came through four kilometers. But the race for first place was down to him and Caden Leonard of Carroll Senior in Southlake, Texas, when Vause began to pull away from Leonard just before the 14-minute mark.
Noonan, who had won his third consecutive Division 3 title in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State Cross Country Championships the previous week, was in second place after a very cautious first kilometer in Portland. But he was in eighth place, 2.9 seconds out of first, after the second kilometer, and he would drop back as far as 14th before finishing fifth.
“I definitely could have done better,” Noonan said in a telephone interview on Monday. “I let people get away from me a little early and then had a good kick towards the end. But I’m definitely happy with the performance. It’s a lot better than I did in the last two years. And so I’m happy, but I still had more in the tank.”
Noonan had finished 46th in the Nike Cross Nationals as a sophomore and he was 45th last year after he fell three times during the race while running on a rain-soaked course in spikes that were too short for the conditions.
His performance on Saturday came at the end of a season that began with an 18th-place finish in the sweepstakes race of the Woodbridge Cross Country Classic in Irvine on Sept. 21 and was followed by a 10th-place effort in the championship race of the Nike XC Town Twilight Invitational in Terre Haute, Indiana, on Oct. 5.
Although he faded badly at the end of those contests, he had posted four consecutive victories prior to Saturday after adjusting his diet so it included more calories and carbohydrates.
“You just got to go with what you got,” he said when he was asked if it would have helped him if the season had lasted another week or two. “I’m not upset or wishing I had more time. I felt really good and fit going into the race.”
All-American honors II: Senior Sadie Engelhardt of Ventura High and Holly Barker of Trabuco Hills in Mission Viejo were the two runners from the Southern Section of California who earned all-American honors in the girls’ race of the Nike Cross Nationals.
The North Carolina State-bound Engelhardt placed 11th with a time of 17:35.0 over the 5,000-meter course and the Colorado-bound Barker finished 14th in 17:37.9.
The first 20 finishers were regarded as all-Americans in the race that was won by senior Jane Hedengren of Timpview in Utah.
Hedengren, who is headed to BYU in the fall, had entered the race as the top-ranked prep runner in nation by dyestat.com and she won by nearly 41 seconds while setting a course record of 16:32.7.
The previous course best of 16:37.8 had been set by Katelyn Tuohy in 2018 when she was a junior at North Rockland in Thiells, New York.
Engelhardt, who entered the race as the No. 2-ranked runner in the nation, was in fourth place after the first kilometer and in second at two kilometers, when she trailed Hedengren by 10 seconds.
She was in seventh place after three kilometers before coming through four kilometers in around 15th place.
“I wasn’t super stoked about it, but I was happy with how I stuck it out at the end,” Engelhardt said about her performance. “I passed a good amount of people during that last 600 meters so I still had a little bit of fight in me.
“It wasn’t completely disappointing, but definitely not what I wanted… I really wanted to place in the top three.”
Engelhardt had placed 26th in last year’s race after being in second place early in that contest, so her performance this year was a significant improvement over that. However, soreness in her right Achilles tendon had forced her to cross train for the previous four weeks and that might have contributed to her not feeling as sharp as she had earlier in the season when she lowered the 5,000-meter course record to 16:24.2 at Woodward Park in Fresno while winning the Clovis Invitational on Oct. 12.
“I wouldn’t say it really affected my fitness,” Engelhardt said about the injury. “Maybe a little, but I was cross training a lot and I’m not used to that. So I feel like that made me feel a little flatter because I wasn’t getting in my regular runs and strides.”
Barker’s 14th-place finish paced No. 3-ranked Trabuco Hills to seventh in the team standings. It also marked the second year in a row that she was an all-American as she had placed 12th last year.
State champions watch: In addition to seniors Evan Noonan of Dana Hills in Dana Point, Eyan Turk of Woodcrest Christian in Riverside, and Sadie Engelhardt of Ventura, three other state champions from the Southern Section of California had varying levels of success in the Nike Cross Nationals.
Senior J.R. Lesher of Hueneme in Oxnard placed 78th (16:29.2) in the boys’ race in Portland after winning the Division 2 title in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) championships.
Senior Rylee Blade of Santiago in Corona finished 28th (17:54.5) in the girls’ race after winning her second consecutive Division 1 championship in the CIF meet the previous week.
Finally, senior Abigail Errington of South Pasadena placed 82nd (18:48.4) in the girls’ race after winning the Division 3 title in the California state championships.
On the team side of things: Trabuco Hills High of Mission Viejo finished seventh in the girls’ team standings in the Nike Cross Nationals after winning the program’s first-ever titles in the Division 1 races of the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Southern Section and State championships in the previous two weeks.
The Mustangs were once again led by the duo of senior Holly Barker and junior Millie Bayles, who finished 14th in 17:37.9 and 37st in 18:07.0, respectively, as Trabuco Hills totaled 211 points.
Mountain Vista of Littleton, Colorado, the top-ranked girls’ squad in the nation by dyestat.com, won the 22-team race with 75 points after placing three runners among the first 32 finishers and five among the top 89.
Lone Peak of Highland, Utah, finished second with 107 points, followed by Buchanan of Clovis, California, with 123.
Trabuco Hills had edged Buchanan, 48-57, for the Division I title in the CIF State meet, but the Mustangs were unable to do so again on Saturday.
JSerra of San Juan Capistrano finished 16th in Portland with 396 points after winning its fourth consecutive Division 4 title in the CIF State championships.
Senior Sophie Polay finished 76th in 18:44.5 for JSerra and junior Chloe Elbaz was the team’s No. 2 scoring runner when she placed 106th in 19:08.6.
Glendora finished 17th in the boys’ team standings with 412 points after previously winning the Southern Section Division 2 title and finishing second to Jesuit of Carmichael in the CIF State meet.
Seniors Dylan Flores and Mathias Oliveros paced Glendora when they finished 71st in 16:25.6 and 96th in 16:36.4, respectively.
The top three boys’ teams were Niwot of Longmont, Colorado, with 70 points, American Fork Senior of Utah with 96, and defending champion Herriman of Utah with 106.
Niwot placed four runners among the top 35 finishers and its No. 5 scorer placed 67th.
Douglass paces Southern Section trio: Senior Max Douglass of Corona del Mar High School in Newport Beach placed sixth in the boys’ race of the Foot Locker West Regional at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, California, last Saturday to advance to the national championships in San Diego this Saturday.
Douglass, who had placed third in the Division 4 race of the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State Cross Country Championships the previous week, timed 15:39 over the 5,000-meter course in a race that was won by senior Tyler Daillak of Paso Robles in 15:28.
Daillak had dropped out of the Division 2 race of the CIF championships after being in third place at two miles.
The top 10 finishers in the boys’ and girls’ races of the West Regional advanced to the national championships at Morley Field in San Diego on Saturday.
Seniors Erika Kirk of Vista Murrieta in Murrieta and Nicole Alfred of Rancho Cucamonga were the top two finishers from the Southern Section in the girls’ race.
Kirk placed eighth in 18:29 over the 5,000-meter course after finishing 15th in the Division 1 race of the CIF State meet.
Alfred placed ninth in 18:30 after finishing 21st in the Division 1 race of the California state championships.
Junior Cassidy Armstrong of Ballard in Seattle won the girls’ title in the West Regional with a time of 17:42 while finishing 23 seconds in front of junior Chiara Dailey of La Jolla in California, who placed second in 18:05.
The national championships will be livestreamed for free on runnerspace.com on Saturday, with coverage beginning at 11:30 a.m., Eastern Standard Time.
The girls’ race will start at 12:15 p.m., followed by the boys’ at 1:00.