This Weekend in Cross Country - October 21-22
Washington high school cross country teams are competing this week in their league meets and teams will advance to district meets next week. Oregon high school cross country teams will be off this weekend as they prepare for their district meets next week. Schools in Oregon and Washington are also dealing with smokey conditions which is causing cancelations of dual meets and postponed league meets.
Mt. SAC - October 21-22
Walnut, CA - Mt. San Antonio College
Mt. San Antonia College hosts the 74th annual two-day high school meet. The team and individual sweepstakes races are split depending on the school size with the D3/D4/D5 schools competing on Friday and the D1/D2 teams competing on Saturday.
At Friday's D3/D4/D5 girls team sweepstakes, Cathedral Catholic travels up from San Diego and is currently ranked #2 in the D3 state polls released on October 17 by CIF/PrepCal Track. Challenging Cathedral Catholic include other D3 teams like #3 La Costa Canyon, #4 Dana Hills, #5 University City, #7 Thousand Oaks and #9 Santa Margarita. Other teams to watch include D4 teams #4 South Pasadena, #7 St. Lucy's, #8 La Jolla and D5 #4 Viewpoint. Individuals who shine in Saturday's team sweepstakes include La Costa Canyon's Gioana Lopizzo and Chiara Dailey, Santa Margarita's Sophie Polay and Viewpoint's JiaLian Mackey.
Friday afternoon's individual sweepstakes include top athletes Marjourie Lopez of Shadow Hills, Sydney Romeo of Yorba Linda, Arielle McKenzie of Calabasas and Danielle Hollander of Beverly Hills.
In the boy's D3/D4/D5 sweepstakes, it is anybody's race to win. Some D3 ranked teams include #4 Thousand Oaks, #5 Dana Hills, #6 West Torrance, #8 University City and #10 Agoura. St. Francis of La Canada leads the D4 teams with #2 St. John Bosco and#4 Cathedral of Los Angeles in the race. Traveling down from the Bay Area, D5 #7 Nueva will also be in the mix. Some individuals to watch include Emmanuel Hernandez of Cathedral, Evan Noonan of Dana Hills, Aiden Aldana of St. John Bosco and Hayden Owen of St. Francis.
At Friday's Individual sweepstakes, look for Bille Issa of West Ranch, Templeton's Joshua Bell, Mission Viejo's Caleb McDaniel and La Costa Canyon's Jacob Niednagel to vie for the victory.
Saturday morning the D1/D2 team sweepstakes boasts several state-wide ranked teams in the girl's division. Rancho Cucamonga comes is trending upwards after winning the last week's Inland Empire Championships and are ranked #2 in division 1 in the state. Other ranked teams in the sweepstakes race includes #5 Great Oak, #7 Torrey Pines, #8 Del Norte, #10 Canyon Crest Academy and D2 #5 Mira Costa. Arizona schools Highland and Xavier College Prep will add to depth of the field. Individually Madilyn Siana of Rancho Cucamonga, Kelli Gaffney of Great Oak, Hannah Riggins and Emily Russo of Del Norte and Anna Chittenden of Mira Costa are expected to be in the top pack.
On Saturday's individual sweepstakes, freshman Cameron Macias of Clovis West, Tessa Buswell of Poway and Mackenzie Browne of JW North are the top athletes.
In the boy's sweepstakes on Saturday, #1 D1 San Clemente comes off their dominant performance from last week's Orange County Championship. There will be challengers including D1 #2 Great Oak, #3 Crescenta Valley, #5 Torrey Pines, #9 Trabuco Hills and D2 teams #4 Mira Costa, #7 Ayala, #9 Tesoro (plus Highland of Arizona). The race is loaded with individuals who could win the race like Juan Chantaca, Brett Ephraim and Rory Catsimanes of San Clemente, Gabriel Rodriguez, Ramses and Mark Cortes of Great Oak, Parker Simmons of Crescenta Valley, Ryan Thomas of Torrey Pines, Carsten Williams of Trabuco Hills, Jonah Bazerkanian and Noah de la Rionda of Royal, Andrew Martin of Mira Costa, Nathan Tsai of Ayala and Griffen Kushen of Tesoro.
The individual sweepstakes could be race between Cameron Rhone of Long Beach Poly, Jason Parra of Millikan and Russell Blakely of Grossmont.