Cross Country

The cross country season officially got underway on Friday when the Dons hosted the Granada Matadors at Shadow Cliffs at the annual time trial. Both Granada’s boys and girls are ranked in the top 10 in the state in Division 2 and wasted little time showing why. Granada’s boys took the top 3 spots and 7 of the first 8 and their girls took the top 4 spots and 7 of the top 10. Still, there was plenty for the Dons to be excited about at the conclusion of the event. Of the 22 Dons who had run the time trial in previous years, 18 ran personal bests. Surabhi Kumar led the way for the girls in what was a breakout performance for her. The junior ran a 36 second PR to finish in 12:15 and become the #7 Amador Valley finisher in the history of the course. Just behind her, tying with Kelly Parsons for #8 all time, was Juliette Fletcher who ran 12:17. Her time was a 56 second PR. On the boys’ side, Aidan Boyle made his cross country debut, finishing 9th overall in a time of 10:15. That time ties him with Sean Carrick for #8 all-time. Leading the way though was Jack Gray, who finished 4th overall in 9:56, the #2 time on the course for the Dons. That mark is 1 second in front of Connor McCarthy and 1 second behind Peter Schlachte.

Sara Sanguinetti notched the biggest PR for the girls. After running cross country for the first time last year and then exploding in track to qualify for NCS Tri-Valley in the 400m, Sara dropped 2:15 from her time last year to finish in 15:16. The biggest PR on the boys’ side came from Lucas Pimentel, who clipped 2:23 seconds off of his time from last year to finish in 12:58. As big as that PR was though, Lucas had some competition for that honor. Also setting PRs of over two minutes were Max Jorgenson (2:08) and Ehan Shah (2:02).

We also had 27 athletes who ran the 3k course at Shadow Cliffs for the first time. Those who have been training with us throughout the summer got to show drastic improvements from their first few runs while those who just joined us on Monday received a bit of a trial by fire, learning quickly what cross country is really about. Freshman Euan Houston was the top performing newcomer for the boys (Aidan doesn’t count as he’s run two years of track) with his time of 11:44 and the top female newcomer was sophomore, Derica Su, who just transferred from Homestead High School, but did not run cross country there. The top female freshman was Claudia O’Neill, who ran 15:36. With plenty to look forward to, but also an immediate understanding of what the top teams are capable of (thanks Granada), we’re back to work, getting ready for the Monte Vista Invitational on September 5th and all the races to come after that. Full results of the time trial are available on xcstats at the following links:

boys: https://xcstats.com/event_results.php?school_id=904&event_num=6814&gender=b

girls: https://xcstats.com/event_results.php?school_id=904&event_num=6814&gender=g

Photo Credit to Sasha Green