REVIEW: How much can we pack into one day/weekend? Our athletes enjoyed a fun and hectic day last Friday (pep rally, long bus ride, great weather for a meet, very nice results, hectic dash to Irvine Stadium, fun homecoming game, and festivities). We competed in the Jaguar Invitational in San Diego County against some of the best programs in the San Diego Section (Mt. Carmel, University City, Clairemont, etc.) and we came away with some pretty good results. This is another indication of the strength of our program when you compare us against the whole State. We must keep in mind, though, that we do not just want to be better than the majority of the other programs, we want to be the very best. We attend this meet to prepare for the hills that is traditional at the league finals and especially at the CIF championship meets. We were not disappointed. The hills were challenging. The boys’ course was longer than the standard cross country course (3.1 miles) and the girls’ course was shorter than a regular cross country course (2.6 miles).
The Varsity Boys, lead by Dragan Simic, finished 2nd in their race (Mt. Carmel beat us this year but we defeated Mater Dei for the first time at this meet). The JV Boys team (led by Jorge Herrera) took first in the race, the Frosh/Soph Boys team (led by Adar Karny) took fifth in the race, the Varsity Girls team (led by Molly Babcock) finished 1st in their race (our first victory ever at this meet), and the girls’ frosh/soph JV combo (led by Marissa Lara) finished 2nd in the race.
The boys ran 84:09 (cool weather though) compared to 87:21 in 2009, 86:16 in 2008, 87:51 in 2007, and 89:24 in 2006. Dragan Simic placed first in the race and had the 2nd fastest time of all the boys in the meet.
The girls ran 81:23 (again cool weather) compared to 87:21 in 2009, 85:44 in 2008, 85:27 in 2007, and 83:19 in 2006. Molly Babcock placed first in the race and posted the fastest time of any girl in the meet.
Our lower level athletes performed well also. It is very exciting to project what these athletes will be running in future years. We have so many talented frosh and soph runners that deciding the varsity team will be extremely difficult down the line. It is tough now but it will get tougher in future years. Keep up the great improvement.
ATHLETES OF THE WEEK: Jorge Herrera continues to regain his old form and worked his way back onto the varsity team and we are extremely happy for him. He established himself as one of the top high school distance runners last track season and we need his talent on the varsity team. Marissa Lara is getting closer and closer to getting back on our varsity team as she is also working herself back from her injury. She played such a huge role on our State team last year and it is good to see her regaining some of her previous form. Adar Karny and Veronica Moralieva turned in the most improved performances and Kyle Oefelein and Paco Gilbert turned in excellent “rookies of the meet” performances.
WEEK’S SCHEDULE:
1) SECOND LEAGUE MEET on THURSDAY AT MASON PARK. WHS to Culver and left turn to University Drive and right turn. Make the first left turn into the park.
- The bus leaves at 1:30pm and you will be dismissed from your 5th period class. Please dress at lunch time so that you can get to the bus on time. Tell your 5th period teacher that you will be leaving for the meet before then. Get your assignment for the day ahead of time.
- The schedule of races:
- 3:00pm - JV Boys
- 3:30pm - JV Girls
- 4:00pm - Varsity Boys
- 4:30pm - Varsity Girls
- 5:00pm - Frosh/Soph Boys
- 5:30pm - Frosh/Soph Girls
- For the boys: CDM, Beckman, and Uni will push us hard again. We lost to CDM and barely finished ahead of Beckman even though Beckman’s #2 runner got injured at the 2 mile mark. Our boys are capable of reducing the time spread to the 15-20 second range and put ourselves in position to do well. We are a very good team and with focus and confidence, we are capable of performing at our highest level for the season. Josh, Brandon, Zach and Daniel have all run real good races on separate meets. They have not all run outstanding in the same meet. We simply need to do that. All of these boys have unbelievable talent. We just need to run mentally tough and not bail out in the middle of the race.
- For the girls: Northwood and CDM will be very strong again. We handed CDM their first league loss in many, many years. We all saw how they responded at the OC meet. However, we improve each time we get on the course. We are a better team now than we were at the last league meet. If they improved more than we did, then it will be even closer this time around. We simply need to keep our top four competing at the level we have done previously and with Olivia getting closer and closer to the WHS Invite form and Alexis and Alyssa getting stronger and stronger, we will close that 5th place gap. This will assure us of highest finish in the meet.
- Practice on Saturday will be at 9:00am. An unexcused miss of this practice will result in not participating in the League Finals.
2) Bring sweats to all of our practices at this time of the season (the sun goes down earlier and the temperature drops quickly at the end of our practices), keep following the nutrition suggestions we have made, do not share your water/drink bottles (sick-season is upon us), keep hydrating, do homework at lunch and tutorial so that you do not go to bed late, keep up with your 50 push-ups a day and 150 sit-ups a day.
3) League Finals are on Friday, November 5, 2010 starting at 1:00pm.
Enjoy these last weeks of the regular season!
“The race does not go to the swift but to those that persevere"
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