Preston Thue
Staff Writer
After their persistent effort at the CIF Preliminaries, both the boys’ and girls’ Mira Costa cross country teams will be moving on to the California Interscholastic Federation Finals.
The meet was at the Riverside course on Saturday with 23 schools present in both the boys’ race and the girls’ race. The boys finished third behind Loyola and Claremont. The girls finished fourth behind Saugus, Woodbridge, and Canyon/Anaheim.
“This race was tough because it was super dusty and we aren’t used to racing with so many people,” senior Amanda Han said. “There was good competition out there, but we had what it takes to qualify for CIF Finals.”
For the first half of the boys’ race, Costa’s plan was to start out strong but in control so that it didn’t lose energy too quickly. According to Han, it was crowded at the beginning since there were so many people in the race.
“It was really flat and fast. So, there weren’t really very many hills,” junior Austin Lamb said. “There was a little bump at one point and a dip at another, but it was pretty flat, sandy, and dusty.”
In the second half, the boys were determined to finish with good places, so they sped up and were able to finish strong. They did this despite two of their best runners,sophomore Cole Lewis and Quinn Satow, getting stuck behind a crowd, therefore finishing behind their usual high places.
“At the start of the race, our top three, Ty Garrett (senior), Caleb Llorin (junior), Ethan Williams (senior), made it past the crowd,” Lewis said. “Quinn and I started out too slow and got stuck behind the crowd. We added up passing them around mile two, but by then our times had already suffered.”
According to Han, the first half of the course is relatively flat with two loops on a dusty dirt path, and the second half is slightly more challenging with the small incline.
“I was personally happy with my race because I came close to my goal of 19 minutes. I finished in 19:06, passing eleven people in the last mile,” junior Gaby Guererro said.
Junior Melia Chittenden finished only one second behind Amanda Gehrich from Tesoro who placed first overall. Chittenden finished at 17:04, and all of the other top five Costa girls were able to run under 19 minutes. According to Guererro, this has been a big goal for Costa this year.
“We finished a little behind where we would have wanted to, but place doesn’t matter in preliminaries as long as we’re in the top eight,” Guererro said. “It’s all about next week at Finals. I’m so proud of my teammates and I’m excited to compete next week at Mt. Sac.”
The team will next be racing at the CIF Finals on Saturday at Mount Sac. If Costa places in the top seven, they will move on to state.
“We were happy with their performance,” girls cross country coach Renee Williams-Smith said. “We finished right where we wanted to finish in order to qualify for the CIF Finals next week.”
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