Men - San Marino’s varsity men extended their winning streak in the Rio Hondo League at Lacy Park on Thursday by repeating their win over South Pasadena.  Even though the win will have no impact on the league championship competition, it did serve to demonstrate the power of this year’s squad.  Counting Michael Mundo, who won the frosh-soph race, the guys had 7 men break the 17 minute mark on the tough Lacy Park course.  Just look at the table below  to realize what the guys accomplished on Thursday.

They put two men in front of South Pasadena’s Cullen Irvine!  That is not easy.  Then, they put 6 guys in front of SoPas’ #4 man.  So, perhaps the Tigers weren’t trying all that hard, considering that the meet didn’t count for anything.  Still, the Titans had 7 guys under 17 minutes.  That will be a tough nut for SoPas to crack next month.

La Canada’s Ethan Angold proved this writer’s pre-season ranking accurate as he took the silver medal behind the league’s top athlete, Josh Wilson.  Just 8 seconds separated #5 from #2 so expect heated competition from those 4 athletes for the silver medal next month.  In the meantime, the Mt. SAC Invitational is next.  Talk about a litmus test.  This team looks ready.

We’ve known that he could do this - Senior Yuvan Wickramasinghe established himself as the #2 on the team when he out-sprinted Cullen Irvine in the homestretch to take fourth, a mere half-second behind teammate George Mundo.  This has been four years in coming.  Superb timing.

How does this team stack up historically?

We measure this, in large part, by total team time on the Lacy Park course on any given day.  Unfortunately, we have total team times for only 4 other teams at this time: 1990, 2010, 2011 and 2012.  Fortunately, the 1990 team is widely considered to be the best 3 mile team in our history.  So, that is a benchmark.  Their best Lacy Park team time was 78:49.  The 2013 team time so far: 82:34.  While it is still 4 minutes off the benchmark, it is the second fastest of the five teams we have records for.

Girls’ Races

Spartans Establish Pecking Order

Varsity Girls - La Canada’s girls didn’t take this day lightly despite its lack of importance.  The Spartan girls sent a message and it was received loud and clear.  They are the clear favorites to repeat as league champions.  La Canada’s Colleen Mispagel had a particularly good day as she edged our own Alissa Barraza for second place.  Alissa’s 18:30 was 3 seconds better than her 2012 best at Lacy (for League Finals).  In an interesting quirk, Alissa finished 2 seconds behind Colleen at last year’s Finals, like she did on Thursday.  The big change from last year - Anna Frederich.  Anna is 45 seconds faster than last year.  What a summer that girl must have had.

Sophomore Olivia Harrigian cut 9 seconds off her 2012 League Finals performance but she could have a bit more in her next month.  Junior Sarah Linton missed breaking below the 20 minute mark but keep in mind that there was nothing at stake today.  Alejandra Larriva-Latt continued to set a fine freshman pace with her 20:36 Lacy Park performance.  We’ll give Alejandra something to shoot at next month: Olivia ran a 19:57 last year as a frosh.  Olivia’s sister, Fiona, continued her relentless improvement this year.  What a difference a year makes.  Fiona is nearly two and a half minutes faster this year.

So, it was sobering day for the team.  La Canada’s top 3 finished with 10 points while our top 3 finished with 17.  Last month, our top three won 11-14, a ten point swing.  Our girls may not have a strong shot at a league championship but the battle for second will be fun.  More importantly, we want to see what the girls can do on the Mt.SAC course.

Back to form - Coach Mundo gets in a workout as he leads senior Veronica Mejia around the course.  Veronica won the JV girls’ race in a time of 20:30 and regained the #4 position on the team.

Junior Toma’s Liu, fighting for a roster spot on a very good varsity squad, turned in a 17:29 in his first tour of Lacy Park this year.  In past years, that would have been good enough.  As it stands now, Toma’s will be the first reserve on the CIF squad.

Junior Justin Castleman showed big year-over-year improvement on Thursday with a 18:26 at Lacy.  Last year, he did a 19:41.  Junior Mathew Ferraco slashed 30 seconds off his 2012 Finals performance.  Matt Kim, another junior, also had a good day.  He ran more than a minute faster than last year.  These guys don’t figure to make varsity next year but they have stayed with the program and worked hard to improve their performances.  They are team players.