Another season of action has local harriers pounding the pavement on the cross-country scene.
At The Bishop’s School, girls head coach Steve Brown has a squad that looks to continue the successes of the last several years, which have been highlighted by three consecutive trips to the state championship and last year’s San Diego CIF Championship.
“The girls will prepare for this year’s CIF championship race with trips to the Clovis Invitational in Fresno (Oct. 6) and the Jaguar Invitational in Escondido (Oct 19),” Brown noted.
The Coastal Conference Finals are scheduled for Friday, Nov. 9 at Kit Carson Park, Escondido.
The CIF Championship will be run Nov. 17 at Morley Field in Balboa Park.
According to Brown, key returnees include Elizabeth Sculze, Alicia Triana, Laura Wyatt, Michelle Wu and Annie Kadota.
Newcomers include Alyssa Morgosh, Lauren Collins, Brianna Tarantino and Serena Glynn.
On the boys side, head coach Adam Weiner will look to several runners to lead the way this fall.
Key runners this season are senior Andy Morgosh, junior Henry Su and freshman Tyler Davidson.
“We have a very young team,” Weiner said. “Almost half of our runners are freshmen. But some of the younger athletes have shown a lot of talent. It will be a bit of a long shot qualifying for the state finals as a team, but you never know. If not, we have a good chance of some of our top individuals qualifying. It’s a good group this year overall. There’s good potential for the future, and if all continues to go well, we could surprise some people.”
At La Jolla Country Day School, head coach Scott Sanders and the Torreys should be formidable once again. So far, LJCD has run in two meets, the Wolfpack and Bronco invitationals, and in both races was one of only a few small schools running.
The boys are led by junior Alex Poyhonen, who finished second in both races. Poyhonen ran the fastest time ever for an LJCD runner at the state meet last year.
Dennis Roth (fifth at Wolfpack, seventh at Bronco) is the number-two runner, and his times as a sophomore have so far been better than Poyhonen’s last year.
Not far behind Roth is sophomore Alex Fleischhacker (13th at Wolfpack, 10th at Bronco). Two more sophomores, Jason McCallum and Vinny Pujji, are running as well or better than last year and are holding down the fourth and sixth spots. Freshmen Lee Klitzner and Phillip Poyhonen, along with junior Jake Eliasberg, are also in the varsity.
As for the girls, the numbers are small and they won’t be able to truly compete as a team this year, but the girls are all working to improve, according to Sanders.
Senior Ariel Abbott and junior Sasha Binderow are running stronger than ever, with hopes of qualifying for state individually. Abbott has medaled in both of her races so far. Newcomers Jessica Wilson, Lisa Felber and Jennifer Herring have terrific attitudes and are working hard as they learn how to run competitively.
LJCD will be in action on Sept. 28 at The Small Schools Invitational.
At La Jolla High, titles are not uncommon for the Vikings.
The boys team under head coach Hal Goforth is off and running.
In a meet last week with Saints, the varsity fell by a 45-50 score. La Jolla was led by Trevor Dorne (third place), Angel Mendoza (sixth), Mike Conroy (eighth) and Daniel Holl (10th).
“It was a good start especially since we trained moderately hard on Thursday and did not rest for this race,” Goforth said.
The La Jolla JV won by a 27-42 score, with freshman Andrew Farkas winning the race in 13:22. Alex Eve came in second close behind with 13:28. A walk-on, Dylan Boyce, placed fourth in 14:42, followed by a much-improved returning James Giammona (eighth in 13:55) and Ben Aldrich (12th in 14:15).
“The depth of both teams this year, plus the experience of returning runners, suggests we may do well in Division III,” Goforth remarked. “Our training needs to catch up with teams that have trained all summer. Many of our runners traveled extensively in the summer and didn’t train much.”
Last year La Jolla had no scoring seniors on varsity, and it brought a freshman, Mike Conroy, up from JV, where he contributed much as the third-fourth runner.
“This year we may see freshmen (Andrew Farkas and Alex Eve) contributing even more to our teams,” Goforth said. “However, it is too early to do anything but train properly and consistently, and try to avoid injuries and illness. Having fun in this process is our goal.”