2009 Sierra League & CIF Champions – State Runnerups

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune has published it’s 2009 All-Area team for Cross Country and it includes quite a few familiar faces.  Juniors Lauren Justus and Anthony Castro were selected as Athletes of the Year.  Kelly Hernandez and Austin Goodheart were also selected for the first team, while Austin Mendoza and Shin Yamamura led the second team.

Unlike previous years, the article accompanying the lists that does a nice job of breaking down the season, with quotes from Lauren, Anthony and Coach Don Sumner, who was selected Boys Coach of the Year for the second year in a row.  But the Trib also continued it’s now annual tradition of excluding deserving Glendora athletes in the name of “balancing” the lists.   For a more representative list of XC honors – go back and review the Mt.Sac XC awards.

Our annual team banquet is this Thursday, December 10th, at the Legion Hall in Finkbiner Park.  Monday is the absolute deadline to make your reservation.  The dinner is free for team members and $10 each for family and friends.  Full details: GHS Cross Country Banquet.pdf

Also this week, the Glendora City Council will be honoring our championship boys varsity team during this Tuesday’s meeting.  The meeting begins at 7:00 pm on December 8th in the City Hall Council Chambers at 116 Foothill Blvd.  UPDATE: You can view video of the meeting and ceremony here.

With today’s Footlocker West meet, cross country season has ended for all of our athletes.  So what’s next?

Our annual training plan calls for our athletes to take at least two weeks off from training between XC and track seasons.  This should be an active rest period – play soccer, ride your bike, play hoops in the driveway – your rest comes from getting away from structured training rather than merely laying around.

Athletes that will be competing in the distance events in track (800, 1600, 3200) will begin regular training again on Monday, December 21st.  Remember that being a distance runner is an almost year-round calling.

So if you have had at least two weeks off from training, you should begin running again on your own over the next two weeks.  Week 1: Run 30 minutes + 4 buildups three days a week.  Do one of our strength routines on each of those days too.  Week 2:  Add a fourth day like the other three.  Run on soft surfaces and find some teammates to run with.

Note: if you’ve run off and on since the end of the season, count any week where you ran three times or less as a rest week.

So now we’re part of the track team – so look for updates on the team website: glendoratrackandfield.net

While the official XC season ended for most of our athletes ended with November 3rd’s Sierra League Finals, several of our athletes competed in open XC meets.

On Sunday, November 15, soph Ross Brunett and and juniors Jon Carlo Nunez and Christian Arranaga took another shot at the 2.91 mile Mt.Sac course in the Southern California Association – USATF Championship meet.  Ross was 15th (18:04 PR) and Christian was 21st (18:57) in the Intermediate Boys  (born 1993-94) Division, and Jon Carlo ran a 17:59 PR to finish 10th in the Young Mens (born 1991-92) Division.  Full results are here.

The following Sunday, all three traveled to Escondido to compete in the USATF Region 15 XC Championships, along with athletes from all of Southern California as well as Arizona and Southern Nevada.  Ross was 30th, Christian 44th and Jon Carlo 26th in their divisional races.  Full results here.

The final XC competition was at today’s Footlocker West meet at Mt.Sac.  This is a qualifier for the Footlocker National meet but also has races for all levels of athletes.  In previous years, many of our athletes ran this meet, but since this year’s season extended all the way to the State meet, only three Tartan’s lined up.  Sophs Ross Brunett (19:29) and Chris Vega (20:41) took on the longer 5000 meter course – they’re times convert to 18:18 and 19:25 on the traditional 2.91 mile course.  Race Results are here.

Coach Ben Mejia also ran in the Footlocker Open race. Unable to find the form the led to his win in the open race at the Brea Invite, Ben finished 18th in 17:29 (16:24 converted).  Race Results are here, and complete meet results are here.

And with that, we’re done.  With XC.  Now it’s time for track season!

On Thursday night will be the second year of the revived San Gabriel Valley Cross Country awards at Mt.Sac.  These awards are based on the best times achieved on the Mt.Sac course by the athletes of the 33 schools in the East SGV.  Awards are given to the top 5 performers in each grade level.  The top boy and girl will be Athletes of the Year, and teams with the top cumulative team time will be given the top team award and their coaches will be awarded Coach of the Year.

The Tartans will be well represented.  Juniors Lauren Justus and Anthony Castro are Athletes of the Year.  Our guys will get the team award – our best was almost five minutes better than the second team – and Don Sumner will receive the Coach of the Year award.

Austin Goodheart is second among seniors, Kelly Hernandez and Shin Yamamura are second and third after Anthony on the juniors list, and Austin Mendoza is the top sophomore.  You can view the complete list here.

The ceremony will begin at 7:00 PM in the Founders Hall in the middle of the main campus.

Directions:  Please enter Mt. SAC at the main parking lot entrance off of Grand Ave. Drive to the information kiosk and tell them you are there for the cross country awards ceremony. They will direct you to the free parking lot area reserved for that night.

Eight Tartans went to the line at the California State Cross Country Championships in Fresno.  Junior Lauren Justus and the boys varsity team had qualified for the State Div. II finals – a first for the boys team while Lauren joined Christy Adamyk (’07) as the only Tartans ever to advance as individuals.

When the day ended, we left Fresno with a big trophy and a load of memories.

The day began with Lauren’s race.  She overcame a near fall about 300 meters into the race, needing to leap over a stumbling runner, but never quite found her best rhythm, finishing 67th in 19:18 on the rolling 5000 meter course.  You can view full results and a video of the race here.

The guys stepped to the line about hour later.  Fresh from our CIF Southern Section championship the previous week, the Tartans were ranked second in the State to national power Mountain View.  According the electronic chip timing system, new for this year’s meet, the guys were fourth at the mile split.  As the race opened up, the Tartans moved forward, and were second to Mountain View at the 2.1 mile mark.  Holding off a hard charge from Valencia over the final mile, the guys held their places to finish second with 158 points and a cumulative team time of 80:09.  Full results and race video here.

Junior Anthony Castro led the Tartans with particularly strong performance, finishing 13th in 15:32, probably the best individual performance ever by a GHS XC athlete – it’s superior to Thomas Finnigan’s (’08) 15:17 at Mt.Sac and Joey Divizia’s (’08) 15:35 at Bonelli Park.  Anthony was 35th overall combining all five divisions.

Next across the line, all running right at their lifetime bests were Kelly Hernandez (36th, 16:02), Austin Mendoza (38th, 16:03) and Shin Yamamura (60th, 16:15).  Our final three were seniors Austin Goodheart and Neill Netzeband, and junior Nick Orozco.

Second was great achievement for our team – our performance would have won the State Div. II race five out of the previous six years.  Champions Mountain View’s 78:26 team time was the fastest of the day for all divisions and the tenth best ever on the Woodward Park course.  But they graduate most of their team and we don’t, so next year…

There’s a nice feature in the SGV Tribune here.  Complete meet results are here, and here, and GHS splits and times are here:  11-28-09-state-champs.pdf

Special honor goes to seniors, team captains, and four year varsity lettermen Austin Goodheart and Neill Netzeband, who finished their GHS XC careers on Saturday.  Austin’s best race of the year was his win in the second Sierra League cluster meet, where he is 5th GHS AT, and at CIF Prelims, where his 15:44 performance is =6th GHS AT.  Neill’s best performances also came at the two Sierra cluster meets, where he was our critical fifth man and his best time of 16:40 was 15th GHS AT at Bonelli.

And even greater honor goes to our head coach Don Sumner.  Our success in 2009 is the culmination of 14 years of his hard work and dedication to our program.  Well done and congratulations, Coach.

The Tartan guys and junior Lauren Justus went to the line at Saturday’s CIF-SS Finals with big expectations.  The boys team had advanced to finals for the first time, and had done so with the top time in Div. II, a GHS record 78:42.  Lauren was also coming off a big PR in prelims that brought her to the Finals starting line for the first time two.

Lauren led off in the first race of the day.  She got caught in the crowd a bit during the first mile, and was 5 seconds behind her mile split from the previous week.  She moved up a little the second mile and then made a huge charge up Reservoir Hill to move all the way up to 8th at the top.  She gave a way a few spots on the downhill, but ran to the line in 18:06, good for 11th place and a place in the State meet.

The guys a ran ambitiously in the first mile, with Anthony Castro and Kelly Hernandez running near the front as the leaders went through the half mile in 2:14!  The paid a little for this later, but the guys once again strung together a group of strong performances for the win. We scored 96 points to defeat Valencia by 23 and Loyola by 34, with another school Mt.Sac record of 78:38.

Anthony was again our leader in 15:20, with his 7th place finish earning him a medal and first team CIF honors.  He was followed by soph Austin Mendoza in a PR 15:44, and then closely by Kelly in 15:45.

The biggest performance came from junior Shin Yamamura, whose 21 second PR of 15:56 slammed the door shut.  Shin was the fastest fifth man in the race by 16 seconds, and this allowed us to put five below four on all but one team in the field.  If Shin had merely run his previous PR, we would have finished third.  So thank you, Shin.

Shin’s performance moves him 8th on the GHS All-Time Performers list, and Austin M moves up to =6th.  Lauren improved her mark but remains second on the list.

Shin also jumped to 7th performer on the 2009 SGV at Mt.Sac list, where we have an amazing five of the top seven spots on the guys list.  Lauren’s mark improved her lead on the list, which you can view here.

Complete results are here.  GHS times and splits are here: mtsac-summary-4-meets (this actually has the times and splits for all four of the meets we ran at Mt.Sac.  The SGV Tribune’s coverage of the meet is here.

On to Fresno.

This Saturday should be exciting – this is the first time we’ve advanced boys and girls to the finals in the same year, and the first time our boys team has ever advanced to the Finals.  In recent years, our girls team, led by CIF champ Christy Adamyk (’07), advanced to Finals in 2005, while Joey Divizia (’08) and Thomas Finnigan (’08) advanced as individuals in 2006 and 2007, respectively.

This year, our boys team will go to the line with the best qualifying time in Div. II by nearly a minute, and with strong expectations of not only a top 7 finish to send them on to the State meet, but of winning!

Junior Lauren Justus easily advanced with the 11th best time overall and second best among individuals at last week’s Prelims.  Lauren needs to finish among the top five individuals (from teams not advancing) and in the top 20 overall to move on to Fresno – and a good performance should do it for her.

Lauren and the Div. 2 girls race at 7:45 and the guys race at 8:25, once again on the tough and famous Mt.Sac course  As with Prelims, admission is only through the Stadium gate, and is $8 for adults and $5 for students with ID’s and kids.  The award ceremony for each division is about 55 minutes after the start of the event on the upper field near the finish line.

Let’s take the next step.

The Tartan boys and Lauren Justus stepped to line favored to advance, and advance they did.  On easily the best day of Glendora XC history, the boys advanced with the top time of the day in Div 2 and Lauren easily moved on.  Eight of our nine runner’s PR’d, and the guys set a GHS Mt.Sac team record by almost 1:40.

Lauren advanced as an individual, so she stood alone on the line without teamamtes, and was nearly alone at the end.  She ran a controlled, tactical effort to finish third in her heat in a PR 18:11, the tenth best time among the Div. 2 girls.  Her time moves her from the 3rd to 2nd on the GHS All-Time Performers list on the Mt.Sac course.

The guys went to the line rated 3rd in Div. 2, and so we were the top team seed in our heat.  The guys lived up to their ranking by winning the heat with only 36 points (and 3 minute and 54 point gap to the second team), with a combined team time of 78:43.  This broke our team Mt.Sac record set at the Invite, and was the fastest Div. 2 of the the day by almost a minute, and was the sixth fastest combining all the divisions.

The Tartans were led by a breakthrough performance from junior Anthony Castro.  Anthony won the heat in a huge 15:17 PR.  Third fastest Div. 2 runner on the day, he missed Thomas Finnigan’s (’08) school record by 1 second.  We placed an amazing four runners in the top 7, with a 5-6-7 finish from Kelly Hernandez, Austin Goodheart, and Austin Mendoza, all in PR’s.  Shin Yamamura closed the door with a 16:17 PR for 19th place.  Off of these results, Anthony is now 2nd best GHS A-T at MtSac, Kelly is 4th, Austin G. is 6th, Austin M. is 7th best, and Shin is just outside the top 15.  Wow.

This was a great day for our team, and the boys team advances to the CIF finals for the first time.  While the guys will be favored to win and Lauren to advance, these results only get us to the starting line.

Next Saturday, we’ll need an even better set of efforts to get us to where we want to be at the finish line.

Glendora results here, complete results are here, and the split sheet is here: 11-14-09-cif-prelims.pdf

Our league champs, the boys Varsity team and Lauren Justus have qualified for the CIF Southern Section Prelim meet, held this Saturday, November 14th at Mt. Sac.  The Southern Section and California are so huge that simply advancing to this meet is the equivalent of advancing to the State meet in most States.

We compete in Division 2, the second largest, and this meet is the first of three stages of California’s post season.  In our division, the first four teams and any individuals finishing in the top 6 whose teams do not advance will move on to the next weekend’s CIF Finals, also at Mt. Sac.  The Finals Championship also serve as the qualifier for the California State Championships, held on November 28 at Woodward Park in Fresno.

Admission is $7 (students & kids $5), only through the gate on the north side of the stadium.  Parking is only in the large lot across Temple Ave from the stadium and course.

The guys, currently ranked 3rd in the SS Div 2, are the top seed in our heat, and Lauren is well positioned in her heat to take one of the six qualifying spots.  The guys will race in 3rd Div. 2 heat at 2:34 pm, while Lauren also races in the 3rd D2 heat at 3:38.  You can view all of the heat sheets here.  Update: results will be posted shortly after the races here.

We’ve trained long and hard to get to this point, now all we have to do is go do it.  Let’s take the next step.