DAILEY, LLORENS ABLE TO SHINE AT MT. SAC
La Jolla High School’s Chiara Dailey looked like a woman possessed Friday, when she ran the first mile at the 75th Mt. SAC Invitational in 5:09. Scorching fast.
Francis Parker’s Ariella Llorens took it a little easier.
In the end they both accomplished the same result, Dailey capturing the Team Sweepstakes for the second straight year in the combined Division 3-4-5 race with a personal-best 16:52 over the hilly 2.93-mile course and Llorens finishing first in the Individual Sweepstakes at 17:44.
For Dailey, it was simply shaking off prerace nerves and attempting to set a personal best despite the temperature on the runway at the start of the race touching 90 degrees. Mission accomplished, as her time was six seconds quicker than a year ago when she was a freshman.
“It was hard through the hills, it was killing me, but I know I could have run a lot faster if I’d had a little competition,” said the red-haired runner. “It’s definitely worse to try to push all by yourself and I honestly could have gone faster with competition.”
Actually, breaking 17 minutes is a bit of a milestone and only a handful of girls have done so from San Diego.
She built a 12-second lead at the mile, upped it to 18 after two miles and won by an even 30 seconds.
“I thought Gioana (Lapizzo) would be the one to push me, but she didn’t run,” said Dailey, who wasn’t fazed at all by the heat. “I think I can get the San Diego record (16:41 by Rancho Bernardo’s Molly Grabill in 2009) next year.”
Llorens had a bigger gap — 56 seconds over West Covina’s Becky Osorio (18:38).
“I’m really happy with that race,” said the Parker sophomore, holding the unique first place prize — a cowbell. “I was hoping to do this at the end of the season but I felt good today.
“My strength is the hills and I really worked hard going up and down the last one. (Osorio) was right with me on the other hills but I guess she fell back. I didn’t look back to see if anyone was there.”
Not only did Dailey run away with the individual title, but Cathedral Catholic defended its team title.
Lindsay Zimmer led the way with a fourth-place finish in 18:15, one spot ahead of teammate Scarlett Martin’s 18:27.
The top boys’ runner was University City’s Caden Hicks, who clocked an even 15:00 to place third in the Individual Sweepstakes. Hicks was seventh with a half-mile to go and made a late run, missing out on second place by just two seconds.