Show Up, Warm Up, Go Fast, Go Home

On Saturday, December 27th, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune will publish its All-Area Cross Country team.  Coach Sumner, along with several of our guys, will be prominently featured - and pictured!  But remember, if you get them out of the newstand - you have to pay for each paper!

We will link to the feature article and photos here when it’s published.

The 2008 XC Season came to its final (?) end on Saturday at the Footlocker West Regional Championships held at Mt. Sac.  Nine Tartans took part in this race at Mt. Sac which covers 5 kilometers, finishing on the track of the stadium.  The race attracts runners from Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico and serves as the qualifying meet for next Saturday’s Footlocker National XC Championships in San Diego.

The top honors went to soph Anthony Castro and freshman Austin Mendoza.  Anthony, running 17:17 for 5k, finished 10th (5th among sophs) in the prestigious All-West Regional Frosh/Soph Championships.  Austin was 13th among freshmen in the Frosh/Soph open race in 18:24.  The large fields and the length of the season contributed to our teams being somewhat slow, but soph Shin Yamamura came the closest to his seasonal best with a 18:08 effort.

And with that, the 2008 XC season comes to an end.  Some of our athletes will be competing in one or two track meets in December before starting their track season base training - you can read about those meets at our track team’s web site:  GlendoraTrackandField.net.

GHS results are here, and the pdf with times and splits is here: 12-6-08-footlocker-west.pdf.  Complete meet results, with photos of Austin and Anthony are here.

Tonight was the revival of the San Gabriel Valley Cross Country Awards.  Formerly called The Leatherlunger Awards, the event, sponsored by the staff of the Mt Sac Invitational led by Tim O’Rourke, honored the top ten seniors, and top five juniors, sophomores, and freshmen in the east San Gabriel Valley, along with the top team and coach.

Our team was easily the top team among the 34 schools in the area - our cumulative time on the Mt Sac course of 80:33 was the best in the area by two minutes.  Our status as the top team also made our Coach, Don Sumner, the coach of the year!

Seven of our athletes received individual honors:  Corey Bullock (6th amongs Seniors), Anthony Castro (1st - Sophs, 2nd overall), Kelly Garcia (3rd - Sophs), Austin Goodheart (2nd - Jrs, 5th overall), Austin Mendoza (4th - Frosh), Christopher Ramsey (2nd Srs, 4th overall), and Shin Yamamura (5th - sophs)

Tim O’Rourke and a number of other players in the local XC scene are reviving the all-area awards for Cross Country.  Our Varsity team will be honored as the top local team and Don Sumner will be honored as Coach of the Year.  Corey Bullock, Chris Ramsey, Austin Goodheart, Anthony Castro, Kelly Hernandez, Shin Yamamura, and Austin Medoza will receive individual honors (along with Lauren Justus and Johanna Murray from our girls team).  Here’s the logistical information:

This year’s top San Gabriel Valley high school cross country runners will be honored in a special awards ceremony to be held on Wednesday evening, December 3rd  at Mt. Sac College in the Founder’s Hall Building beginning at 7:00 PM. Doors will open at 6:00 PM.

All athletes, coaches, family members and friends are invited to attend the ceremony. There is no cost, and the ceremony is expected to last about one hour.

Since there are night classes in session at Mt. SAC on Wednesday night, please make sure you arrive early enough to have time to park in a metered parking area—since classes are in session, parking rules will be enforced. The Founder’s Hall is in the center of the main campus.

The Tartans’ season came to a disappointing end today as we failed to advance in the CIF Div. II prelims.  We finished fifth in our heat, seven points behind the final qualifying spot.

The conditions slowed times for all the teams, so there were no PR’s for our guys.  Our leading runner was soph Anthony Castro, who was 13th in our heat in 16:10.  The best performances came from sophs Kelly Hernandez and Shin Yamamura. Kelly led our team for part of the race and finished as our third man in 16:26, only 4 seconds off his PR.  Shin finished in 17:08, just 6 seconds off of his PR.

Special honor goes to seniors Christopher Ramsey (20th/16:20), Corey Bullock (27th/16:30), and Joel Gillet, for whom this was their last cross country race at GHS.  Chris is one of our captains and in his first full year of XC placed himself several times among the top all-time GHS performers, topped by his second place, 16:00 finish at the Sierra League Finals.  Corey fought back bravely from off season lung surgery only to battle nagging leg injuries all season.  He was second in both Sierra Cluster meets and ran especially well with his 15:55 for 5k at the Clovis Invitational.  Joel, an alternate on today’s team, was another of our captains and also battled injuries all year.  His best performance came early with a strong 16:19 at the Woodbridge invitational.

And so a disappointing ending to what was still one of the finest years ever for GHS XC.  Five of our seven runners return next year, so guys, get ready to take the next step!

GHS results are here, and you can download a pdf with the times and splits here: 11-15-08-cif-prelims.pdf Complete results (lots of pdf’s!) are here.

Our win at League Finals made us one of the three teams from the Sierra League to advance to CIF Prelims.  We will compete in one of the four heats of Div II, and hope to gain one of the top four spots in our heat which will qualify us for the following week’s CIF Finals.

Prelims (and Finals) will once again be held on the famous Mt. Sac Cross Country Course.  The details are similar to what they were for the Mt. Sac Invite:  Parking is on the north side of Temple and costs $5, entry is through the gates at the north end of the stadium, admission is $7, $5 for HS students with ID and kids.  Arrive early!  The lines at the ticket windows are long and move slowly.

We are in Race 5, the third heat of Div. II, which is scheduled to go off at 8:41am.  We are one of the four favorites on paper to advance, along with Claremont and CIF ranked Saugus and North Torrance.  Other contenders are University, Arroyo and Camarillo.  But we don’t run the races on paper, so we’ve gotta run well.

Last year at this meet, Thomas Finnigan (’08) ran 15:26, despite picking up an injury during the race, to advance to the Finals as an individual.  The team did not advance in a historically fast year, but Corey Bullock did become only the fifth Tartan ever to run under 16:00 at Mt. Sac with his time of 15:57.  This year Corey, Anthony Castro, Austin Goodheart, Kelly Hernandez, Neill Netzeband, Christopher Ramsey, and Shin Yamamura hope to be the first Glendora team ever to advance to CIF finals.

Go get ‘em, guys.

Getting caught up - thanks to Steve and Theresa Goodheart

Getting caught up - thanks again to Steve Brunett

(View the complete photo gallery from the Daily Bulletin here)

What a thrilling day!  Great times - almost our entire team PR’d - on the famous Mt. Sac course.  Great conditions.  But most of all, a great result - our varsity team are Sierra League champions!  We defeated Ayala in 26-29 thriller in which the top eleven runners came from our two teams!

All five of the scoring varsity runners played a key role.  The photo above shows our critical 2-3-4 finish by senior Christopher Ramsey (16:00), soph Anthony Castro and junior Austin Goodheart (both 16:01).  Chris’ time put him 7th on the GHS All-Time Performer list, while Austin moved to =8th on the list.  But just as important was the 8th place finish by senior Corey Bullock, fighting off injury to finish in 16:21, and the huge PR by soph Kelly Hernandez, whose 16:22 for 9th put him just ahead of Ayala’s fifth runner and clinched our victory.  Our six and seven runners, soph Shin Yamamura and senior Joel Gillett also shook off injuries to finish 22nd and 29th, respectively, both in PR’s!

The Tartans were well represented at the front of the lower level races as well.  Junior Neill Netzeband was a narrow second in the JV in a PR 17:03, while the team was third.  In the Frosh/Soph division, freshman Austin Mendoza and soph Tim McDougall led the guys to a strong second place finish.  Austin was second overall in 17:17 while Tim was fifth in 17:48.

All buy three of our thirty-seven runners PR’d on this tough, tough course.  The biggest improvements from the earlier Mt. Sac Invite came from soph Victor Solorzano (- 2:12), senior Robert Haburn (- 2:02) and soph Raymond Shipman (- 1:41).

It was a great day for the Tartans.  Special honor goes to seniors Joel Cloud, Brian Arikawa, Robert Haburn, Anthony Pussman, and Brandon Gillett, who all ran their final XC race for GHS.

Here’s a newspaper article which tells the story mostly from Ayala’s point of view, from the SGV Tribune and Inland Daily Bulletin.

GHS results are here.  Complete results, now including video of the varsity race, are here at DyeStatCal.com  You can download a pdf with times and splits here: 11-5-08-sierra-final.pdf

Champions!

Important Update:  The meet is postponed until tomorrow - Wednesday, 11/5.  All other details remain the same.

Many of our guys started on July 1st (a few on their own a couple of days earlier).  Others started along the way.  But all of our training has pointed toward Tuesday, Novemeber 4th, on the famous XC course at Mt. Sac - the 2008 Sierra League Finals.

All of our athletes will race tomorrow - J.V. at 2:19, Frosh/Soph at 3:22, and Varsity at 4:25.  Admission is free, but parking will be two or three dollars in the lots on the south side of Temple, northwest of the stadium.  All athletes will be excused from school during lunch, the bus for the JV and F/S athletes will leave Circle Drive at 12:50pm, and for Varstiy athletes the bus will leave at 1:30pm.  All athletes must travel to the meet on the bus, and must be fully dressed in your athletic gear to get on the bus.

Tartan boys took the top individual honors last year with Thomas Finnigan (’08) winning the Varsity race and Neill Netzeband taking the Frosh/Soph division.  This year, we go into the final meet tied with Ayala, so the winner of the Varsity race will be league champions.  The top seven varsity runners will designated as the First Team All-Sierra League team, and the next seven will be Second team.  We expect to be well represented in both groups.

Let’s make our last race together as a complete team our best race.