Warm, dry weather made it feel more like September than November in Lacy Park for the Rio Hondo League Finals and was challenging for the athletes, especially in the earlier races. The JV Boys were first off, and junior Grant Holt led the Titans with a 4th place finish in a Lacy season best 18:42. The trio of Bill Li (20:09), Jonathan Chen (20:21), and Auberon Lai (20:31) came in next in 17th-19th place. Senior Ethan Deshaies, in his last race at Lacy, was the 5th scoring runner at 20:38 in 23rd. The team took 4th place in the meet with a score of 80 points.
Next off were the JV Girls, and freshman Katie Wong had another top ten finish, placing 7th in a time of 23:50. Sera Xu (25:54, 24th) and Ecca Hu (27:37, 37th) were the other Titans in the race, and without five scoring runners the girls did not get a team score.
The Varsity Boys raced next and qualified for CIF by placing 3rd in the team competition, using a strong third mile performance to overtake Temple City. Senior Eric Lew gained Rio Hondo 1st team honors by placing 5th in a time of 17:07 in his last race at Lacy. Standout sophomore Sean Chen earned Rio Hondo 2nd team honors by placing 13th in a time of 17:54. The remaining Titan scorers were Xavier Beck (18:08, 18th), Tom Moffat (18:13, 19th) and Patricio Osegueda (18:22, 21st).
The Varsity Girls were next off and as expected San Marino’s Olivia Ruiz and La Canada’s Adena Dipaolo resumed their battle from the prior two League meets, where each took a win. In the end, Dipaolo prevailed by less than a second and Olivia came through 2nd in a time of 19:27. Standout freshman Purvaja Balaji equaled her League meet 2 performance by finishing 4th in a Lacy PR time of 20:02. Both Ruiz and Balaji earned Rio Hondo 1st team honors. The remaining Lady Titan scorers were Juliana Judge (21:01, 15th), Meg Hannan (21:26, 16th), and Evelyn Tran (22:19, 23rd). The Titans tied South Pasadena with 60 points, but came in third based on the placing of the 6th runner. The 3rd place finish was good for a ticket to CIF Prelims on November 11 in Riverside, where they have been seeded with La Canada and so Olivia will have another shot at beating Dipaolo and evening the score for the season.
The Frosh-Soph Boys were the last race of the afternoon, and Josh Rose (5th, 18:25) and Joseph Weber (7th, 18:28) each had top ten finishes to lead the guys to a second place team finish. The remaining Titan scorers each had Lacy PRs, with freshman Kai Barra in 14th at 19:22, soph Ben Tang in 18th with 19:59, and Frosh Justin Wang in 39th with 21:29. Several other freshman had Lacy personal bests to close out the season. We’ll look forward to seeing what they will bring to the track squad in spring.
Top 10 and Titan results, as well as a link to complete race results are below.
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