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As we discussed in our race preview, the Mt. SAC Invitational can be a peek at CIF. The picture can get a little obscured when runners normally racing varsity are sometimes placed in their age-level races. So, we’ll focus on Rio Hondo competitors and touch only briefly on CIF.
Girls Take 3rd In Their D4 Varsity Race and Olivia Runs 5th Individually
Although the hot, dry conditions (along with Quarter Finals and Sarah’s cold) seemed to take a toll on the Girl’s Varsity team, they pulled off a 3rd place team finish in their race and took home medals. Their 1:48:48 team time was 8 minutes off the team time that got them to CIF Finals last year. Interestingly, their team time was 10th overall in SS-D4 Girls when all three D4 races are combined, so with three weeks until CIF-Prelims the girls are in contention for the top 16 moving on to Finals. Olivia Harrigian had her second best time, 20:02, on SAC and came in 5th individually. Kelly McCrary continued her recent streak of good runs with a 22:18 PR. Although they competed in different races, the Lady Titans’ team time would have placed them second compared to Rio Hondo rival La Canada’s 1:43:26, and South Pasadena would have come in 3rd with 1:49:11 (both teams appear to have run their full Varsity squad). Complete individual results are available HERE.
Men Run to Personal Bests and Take 5th In Their D4 Varsity Race
With most of the team achieving PRs, the Men’s Varsity continues to exceed pre-season expectations. John Judge led the team with a 5th place finish in 16:59 (PR). Girish Balaji clocked 17:16, just off his PR. Toma’s Liu (17:45), Eric Lew (17:59), Charlie Perry (18:28), Justin Castleman (19:46) and Cavanaugh Jue (19:58) all had personal bests on SAC. The team time of 1:28:30 was 4 minutes off last year’s team time at the Invitational and CIF Prelims, so the guys still have some work ahead of them looking out 3 weeks to this year’s Prelims. Focusing on Rio Hondo League rivals, John beat both Cullen Irvine of South Pas and Ethan Angold of La Canada. South Pasadena ran its regular Varsity squad in its D3 race and had a team time of 1:29:26. La Canada split its squad, but its top 5 finishers across 3 races would have had a team time of 1:29:39, so Titans bested both League rivals. Complete individual results are HERE.
Other Athletes Show Steady Improvement
After missing most of last season to injury, Sharmayne Siu’s 22:42 was close to her SAC PR from 2012. Also in the Girl’s JV race, Jade Larriva-Latt had a PR of 24:38. In the Boy’s JV race, David Thi’s 20:10 puts him within striking range of Varsity, and Alexander Lai had a PR of 21:52. In the Boy’s Soph race, both Kyle McCall (20:46) and Ethan Deshaies (21:13) dropped their PRs by over a minute on SAC. The Freshmen Boys got their first experience on SAC, and Jonathan Chen and Grant Holt came through together at 20:26, followed by Tim Wong (21:44) and Tom Moffat (21:54).
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