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The Titans competed in the 68th annual Mt. SAC Invitational -- billed as the largest in the world. Temps were in the low 80s, but it was still dry and dusty on the famously challenging course. Thankfully, bus transportation was on time this year!
The Freshman Girls raced first, and Juliana Judge took 12th place with a time of 22:04 (a historically good time for a Titan freshman, and tied for 21st of all Rio Hondo runners). Meg Hannan finished with 23:37 in 31st place.
The Freshman Boys followed next and Bill Li placed 23rd with a time of 19:23, which was the 6th fastest Titan guy on the day and gives Coach Angus some options when selecting the Varsity squad for League Finals and CIF. Josh Rose (20:48, 64th) and Joseph Weber (20:51, 69th) both broke 21 minutes.
In the Sophomore Boys race, Jonathan Chen dropped his PR by almost a minute, finishing with 19:29 at 37th place (he was also the 7th fastest Titan guy overall). Tom Moffat (19:41, 43rd) and Tim Wong (20:14, 57th) each took more than a minute off their PR.
In the Varsity Girls race, Olivia Harrigian took 4th place in 19:24. Angela Wang was the next Titan girl finisher (21:13, 42nd), followed by a continually improving Olivia Ruiz (21:26, 48th). The remaining Titan girls were separated by less than 30 seconds, with all breaking 22 minutes. Looking ahead to League Finals and CIF, the girls will need to close the gap between the #1 and #2 runners if they are to succeed. Mashing together the Rio Hondo League girls competing at Mt. SAC across different races, San Marino would have again placed 3rd with 57 points compared to 30 for La Canada and 36 for South Pasadena.
In the last Titan race of the day, Xavier Beck had the fastest Mt. SAC course time for a Titan since 2013, finishing 7th in 16:44. Charlie Perry finished 20th in 17:22 and Eric Lew had a course PR of 17:36 in 27th place. Cav Jue (18:46, 79th) and Patricio Osegueda (19:10, 106th) rounded out the top 5 scoring runners. Again looking at how the Titans matched up to their Rio Hondo rivals, when all the Rio Hondo guys were mashed together across races, the SM varsity team would have taken 2nd with 51 points, following South Pas with 24 and rather narrowly ahead of La Canada with 58. The #4 and #5 scorers remain crucial to how the team will fare.
With CIF prelims being held in Riverside, the Titan seniors will have added incentive to make CIF Finals if they want another run on Mt. SAC before closing their high school XC careers.
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