By Lilly Fabian
Staff Writer
The cross country teams competed in the CIF Preliminary races at Mount San Antonio College (SAC) on Saturday.
The girls team finished in second place and the boys team finished in fourth. In order to qualify for CIF finals, both the boys and girls needed to finish in the top four.
The girls finished in second behind Arroyo Grande High school. Senior team captain Abby Hong placed first in the race with a time of 17:31, beating the second place competitor by thirteen seconds.
“I am very proud of our team as a whole for having a solid showing at Prelim,.” Hong said, “Juniors Emma Lautanen and Natasha Brunstein also had really impressive top ten finishes.”
Lautanen finished in seventh place with a time of 18:05 and Brunstein finished in ninth with a time of 18:23. Brunstein’s time was a personal record and she beat her previous time at Mt. SAC by 35 seconds.
“We wish we could have won the race, but we were really proud of our team,” Brunstein said. “I can’t wait to see what we can accomplish next weekend.”
The boys finished in fourth place, beating the fifth place team by only three points. Senior JC Ohmstede finished first for Costa, but 18th overall, with a time of 16:01. Junior Bram Osterhout finished second for Costa, and 28th overall, with a time of 16:25.
“It was really tough to advance,” junior Matthew O’Brien said, “two of our guys got tripped in the first half mile and a couple of us were sick.”
According to O’Brien, because of their setbacks, the team had to work extremely hard to pass other runners from Beaumont, Moorpark, and Ayala to achieve fourth place.
“The race was really close, but we did an awesome job considering all of our obstacle,.” O’Brien said.
Both teams will compete in the CIF finals on Saturday at Mt. SAC. In order to qualify for the state meet, both teams must place in the top seven.
“There will be very tough competition at Finals, but I know both teams are ready to step up to the challenge,” Hong said.
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