Varsity Girls

League Champions

Alissa Barraza Beats Spartans’ Mispagel For 2nd

Having won the first league meet, the Titan girls were blown out in the second meet by the defending League Champion Spartans.  Led by League Champion Anna Frederich and packed with Mispagel sisters, La Canada should have been unbeatable.  But, the Titan girls have their own set of sisters.  Sister Olivia Harrigian led the 5-6-7 scoring punch that knocked the crown off the Spartans’ head.  We’ve come to expect that Olivia and Sarah Linton are going to run close to the front.  What was a bit unusual was the career race that senior Veronica Mejia delivered on Thursday.  Veronica broke 20 minutes at Lacy Park for the first time, creating what might turn out to be the first time that 4 SM girls have run under 20 minutes in a single Lacy Park contest.

In the previous league meet held in October in Lacy Park, La Canada’s Colleen Mispagel had shadowed Alissa Barraza practically the entire race until the very end when she out-sprinted Alissa to the line.  Alissa was having none of that this time around.  Alissa set a very quick pace on the grass and Colleen was never able to close the gap.  Alissa wound up her career as the runner-up in the League Championship and picked up two points for her team in the process.

All year, the girls have been solid in their first three positions.  Veronica Mejia has come on strong at the end of the season and wiped away the gap between #3 and #4.  But, we always knew the Veronica was talented enough to do that.  What we really weren’t sure about was the #5 position.  That has been the team’s Archilles’ heal.  But, someone always runs well enough to put the team over the top.  On Thursday, it was sophomore Carlin Koch with her 12th place finish.  That was all the girls needed to get them in the team record books.  It is a special accomplishment to be League Champions in a conference of larger schools.  These girls will share that bond for the rest of their lives.

Varsity Men

Men Fall to South Pasadena 27-36

Yuvan Wickramasinghe Takes Second Place

Just short - Titan men captured 3 of the 7 podium positions but so did South Pasadena.  The Tiger Three beat the Titan Three 9-15.

Two out of three league wins will not even get you a cup of coffee this year.  The only one of those meets that meant anything was the last one and our guys didn’t have it in them on Thursday.  Early indications were deceptive as they formed a tight Titan pack for the first mile.  However, by the second mile, the pack had fallen apart and the running order was all askew.  When the dust had settled, the guys ran nearly a minute slower on Thursday than they did a month ago on the same Lacy Park grass in nearly identical weather conditions.  Go figure.

The Tigers, on the other hand, ran nearly a minute faster.  The difference maker for South Pasadena was senior Tyler Gershman, who placed third, beating the #2 runner on his team.  Tyler placed 7th here in October, running a full 10 seconds slower.  But, it was the bottom of the order that came through for SoPas.  Yoon Lee ran 38 seconds faster and Victor Hidalgo was 20 seconds better.

Here is an interesting piece of trivia from the race:  If you treat the two Lacy Park meets as a duo meet between SoPas and San Marino and take the 5 best times from each team from the two meets, it is a dead heat.  Yes, a dead tie.  The first four places go 1-4-5-8 for SoPas and 2-3-6-7 for SM and the fifth runners on each team have the same time - 16:50.

It will probably be decades before the league sees two more evenly-matched teams duke it out for the championship.  Congratulations to the Tigers for putting one down in our house.  And congratulations to League Champion Josh Wilson.  A class act all the way, just like his predecessor - Paul Messana.  We will miss him.

JV Girls

Winner - Junior Kelly McCrary passes the 2-mile mark on her way to winning the JV Girls League Championship.