Cats, Cents pace the pack
Prep cross-country: West Ranch boys and Saugus girls take home first place in meet No. 1
Cross-country Foothill League Meet No. 1 took place with Hart High School hosting 78 of the top boys and girls varsity runners at Central Park on Wednesday.
The West Ranch boys finished the meet with four of their runners finishing in the top five of all boys runners with a total time of 78:00 minutes flat.
Isaiah Seidman took home the first-place honor with a meet-best time of 15:22 seconds. Evan Bates (15:28), Hunter Romine (15:31) and Dylan Gatua (15:32) finished in second, third and fifthplace, respectively giving the Wildcats’ boys team the win.
”In the last 11 days my team raced three times extremely hard,” said West Ranch coach Sara Soltani. “I think what they realized yesterday was how to stick to a plan and execute it even if you are exhausted. They never gave up or made any excuses and they went out and executed and did very well.”
Hart’s Jeremiah Rasmussen finished in fourthplace pacing the Indians’ boys runner with a time of 15:32. The Indians’ boys team finished the meet in fourth-place with the top five runners
finishing with a overall team time of 83.24.
“I think it was a great race for him,” said Hart coach Larry David. “It was a confidence builder and an intelligently paced race. He knew where he wanted to be and he had a strong finish that we wanted.”
Golden Valley’s Daniel Rush led the Grizzlies boy team to a fifth-place finish, pacing the Grizzlies team with a time of 15:35 good for sixthplaced individually.
Saugus boys team finished in second-place with Jacob Kauffman, Blake Gallardo and Nick Serrano placing inside the top 10 runners.
“Jacob ran a solid race as he’s our captain,” said Saugus coach Kevin Berns. “Our two sophomores really stepped up giving and finished second and third on the team as we expected.”
Ethan Danforth led the Cowboys boys team to a third-place finish with a time of 15:41.
“We were hoping the boys would do a little better than they did but it’s still early in the season and we are still,” said Canyon coach Paul Broneer. “This group of schools’ is one of the toughest in California. This is an indicator of where we are at and I feel good about our future.”
Saugus’ girls cross-country team took home the top spot at Central Park as their top five runners finished in the top eight of all girls runners.
Jacqueline Cascione (18:19), Julia Pearson (18:23), Brooklyn Bendrat (18:33), Amaya Aguilar (18:51) and Dani Salcedo (18:52) finished in third, fourth, fifth, seventh and eighth-place leading the Centurions to the first league meet win.
“It was a total team effort led by Jacqueline Cascione,” Berns said. “They work well with each other and they believe in the process and that’s what is going to take them pretty far.”
West Ranch was able to have three of their girls runners finish inside the top 10 of the standing with freshman Alexis Fernandez leading the charge top a second-place finish at 18:06. Abigail Welch (18:36) and Sophia Hoelzel (19:06) were the next best finishers at sixth and 10th-place.
“There were no excuses on the day,” Soltani said. “They went out and competed every single time. They proved that they if they worked hard and keep with the team aspects and atmosphere that they can finish strong.”
Hailey Kirsch of Valencia led all girls runners with the top time of 17:55 to securely give the Valencia girls team the third-place finish.
Canyon, Golden Valley and Hart rounded out the rest of the Foothill League teams.