By Justin Hsieh
This morning, the boys’ and girls’ cross country teams raced at Huntington Central Park in the Sunset Conference Finals, the culminating event of the Barons’ two-month season of competition. Both teams saw outstanding performances from their frontrunners in all levels, with the boys’ frosh-soph and girls’ varsity dominating the field.
The Barons first raced in the girls’ junior varsity (JV) race, where the girls faced forty-degree Fahrenheit temperatures and a bout of intense hail lasting several minutes in the latter half of the race. Despite these conditions, junior Lauren Berg managed to finish second in the Sunset Surf League with a personal record (PR) of 19:36, an impressive accomplishment on the difficult three-mile course. The girls placed second out of four teams in the Surf League.
“[The race] felt awesome,” said Berg. “It started hailing, and I thought that was very amusing. This season has just been a great experience for everyone involved. I feel like [our team] did the best we could, and some of us did better than others, but any race is a good learning experience. I feel like we can all learn from this race.”
With the grass still wet from hail crushed and melted by the previous race, the boys’ JV team took to the line for the second race of the day. Senior Uy Tran raced ahead of the pack, placing sixth in the Wave League with a PR of 17:51. The JV team had strong pack performances, with a pack of nine consecutive runners led by sophomore Keoni Porter and a pack of five consecutive runners led by junior Aaron Sun crossing the finish line together. The JV boys placed third in the Sunset Wave League.
“I think [the race] went pretty well; I PR’ed by like six seconds, I’m pretty happy with that,” said Tran. “The rest of JV also did pretty well; they came in as a pack, which is always great.”
The JV boys were followed by the girls’ varsity race, in which the Barons were led by key frontrunners sophomore Kaho Cichon, junior Maddie Jahshan, and sophomore Leah Ferris. Cichon placed first in the Surf League with a PR of 18:02, Jahshan placed second at 18:22, and Ferris placed seventh at 19:06. The girls placed second as a team in the Surf League, qualifying them to advance to California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Southern Section Preliminaries.
“I didn’t really have high expectations for this race,” said Cichon. “It was my second race this season; this was also my first varsity race. My goal was trying to stay with the front pack… I haven’t really ran this season, but I’m excited to go to CIF with the team.”
The Barons then put their seven-man team into the boys’ varsity race, where they placed third in the Wave League and fell just short of qualifying for CIF. The boys were led by junior Hunter Augustus, who placed ninth in the Wave League with a 16:27, and senior Kyle Meis, who placed 10th with a 16:29. Although the boys missed their CIF goal this year, their relatively small gap of 40 seconds between their first and fifth runners was a cause for optimism among the team, all of whom are juniors except Meis.
“The race was great, we had a lot of fast people,” said Augustus. “My pacing wasn’t too great. During the race, I felt pretty good. But afterwards I’m really frustrated that I didn’t go a little faster… I think the team did great; our varsity was able to come in in a big pack, which helped our score a lot.”
In the girls’ frosh-soph race, the penultimate event of the day, the Barons’ team of ten girls was led by freshmen Kierra Tallas and Evelyn To, who placed sixth and 11th with respective times of 20:50 and 21:24. The girls placed third in the Surf League.
“I felt good, I got a course PR so I was really proud of myself,” said Tallas. “I just wanted to beat my time from last time on this course and beat some Los Al girls. I feel like we did good, and I’m really proud of our team. We did better than last time, and we keep improving. I think we’re going to have a better team next year, and by senior year we’re going to have a really good team.”
The Barons finished the day on a high note with the boys’ frosh-soph race. The boys were led by sophomores Jonathan D’Ambrosio and Shane Hill and freshmen Benjamin Prado and Luke Dias, who finished in an astonishing sequence of second, third, fourth and fifth place in the Sunset Wave League with respective times of 17:08, 17:09, 17:09 and 17:17. The boys dominated both the league and the conference, with a commanding first-place victory in both.
“I’m super excited,” said D’Ambrosio. “I’m just glad that I could beat all my teammates finally for the last race of the season. [The team was] super good, we got first in our league and overall throughout the eight teams, so we succeeded in our goals and I’m happy. The season was a success.”
Following the event, the Barons’ coaches said they were encouraged by the day’s performances. Both girls’ coach Stacy Ferris and boys’ coach Steven Knowles said that their teams were relatively young, and that this year’s Sunset Conference Finals performances bode well for the future.
“I’m really excited about the meet, because our ultimate goal – in fact, beginning in the summer, our ultimate goal was to move on to CIF Prelims, not really knowing how our team would come together,” said Ferris. “I think the girls did a phenomenal job, coming up to that and really stepping up to the plate, considering we lost seven of our top eight girls last year… So ultimately, all and all I think they did better than a lot of people expected, and I couldn’t be happier for the girls.”
Coach Knowles expressed similar thoughts about the boys’ performances.
“I think, overall, our team did fantastic,” said Knowles. “What was most impressive to me was almost everyone on the team got a PR today, either a fastest time overall for this season or a fastest time on this course and that I think just bodes well for the future. I think next year looks really bright and I would say the league [had] better watch out.”
