Local cross-country teams excel at State Meet

BLAZING A PATH—The Oak Park girls’ cross-country team earned a second-place finish in Division III at last weekend’s State Meet in Fresno, finishing behind the No. 1-ranked team in the nation, Corona Del Mar. By virtue of their performance at State, where they ran the second-fastest time of the meet, the Eagles have been invited to run in the Nike Team Nationals in Portland this Saturday. The event is not sanctioned by the CIF, so rather than compete as the Oak Park Eagles, the team will run as the Oak Park Station 36, a name the girls chose as a way to honor the local firefighters in Oak Park. PHOTO COURTESY OF LARRY BARTON Runners on the girls’ crosscountry team at Thousand Oaks High are still celebrating their firstever state championship.

Last Saturday, running on the 3mile Woodward Park in Fresno, the Lancers were the winners and have added the California Interscholastic Federation Division I first-place trophy to their display case.

The Lancers scored a winning low 103 points with a team total, based on the first five runners, average time of 18:53 and a time of an hour and 34 minutes and 25 seconds when the times for the first five runners is compiled.

Senior Lynne Fletcher, taking a fifth place with an 18:14 finish time, was the Thousand Oaks team leader. She was followed by sophomore Kaitlyn Sullivan, seventh, 18:24 freshman Allie Lopez, 15th, 18:54, senior Miranda Houston, 29th, 19:16, and junior Nina Su, 47th, 19:37. Lancer displacers were freshman Megan Meyer, 66th, 19:49, and senior Alix-Ann Kitka 84th, 20:06.

“We had some big wind gusts come up,” said Thousand Oaks head coach Robert Radnoti. “We had to make some adjustments in our running strategy for that. In our race, it doesn’t matter.

“Everyone’s running the same race under the same conditions, that’s good. When you are comparing against different times of the day it makes it difficult when the weather changes,” he said.

In second place, after Thousand Oaks, were the Buchanan Bears, 136 points with a 19:11 average time and 1:35:53 compiled time.

A total of 199 girls ran in the race from 23 schools.

Lancer lead runner Fletcher, who ran for the Thousand Oaks Flyers when she was in seventhand eighth-grade, said she’s “liked running as long as I can remember,” and enjoys the challenge of pacing her team.

“It’s really fun,” Fletcher said. “I enjoy it. It’s kind of a lot of responsibility because you feel like if you’re not doing a good job, you’re letting your team down. I think everyone feels that way.”

She said that while a lot of people say that running is not mental, it really is mental.

“If you are really negative during a race, then you’ll have a bad race,” Fletcher said. “But of course you have to train really hard. We ran almost 10, 12 miles a day this summer. If there’s a girl in front of you, you have to use your mind to push to get there. It takes a lot of mental strength to run.”

Fletcher sees a crossover from running to the classroom. “We build endurance in running, a work ethic,” she said. “I think our strong work ethic crosses over into school, making sure that we get our homework done and we study for our tests.”

The long workouts bring the team closer. “We have fun in the team-bonding things that we do,” she said. “On some teams there are breaks and certain girls like— or don’t like—certain girls. But this year we’re just one big team, one big family. We all push each other. It’s a lot of fun.”

The feeling is expressed, Fletcher said, in the speed workouts. “We run 800 and 1,600 drills. Kaitlyn (Sullivan) and Allie (Lopez) and Megan (Meyer), we all run together. We push each other and work together.”

In the Division III girls’ race, the Oak Park Eagles, with 53 points, finished second to the Corona del Mar Sea Kings, 47 points. Corona del Mar had an average time based on the first five runners of 18:24 and a total time of 1:31:57.

A total of 187 finished this race representing 23 schools.

Sophomore Annie St. Geme of the Sea Kings led her team’s win with a 17:20 run. The Eagles had a time average of 18:39 and a 1:33:11 for its first five runners.

Oak Park’s team was paced by sophomore Courtney Lightfoot, the third-place runner in the race who ran an 18:15. Sophomore Marissa Diehl was next with a ninth-place time of 18:38.

Following Lightfoot and Diehl for the Eagles were third runner senior Kelsey Connor, 10th, 18:38; fourth runner junior Breanne Strenkovski, 13th, 18:42; and fifth runner sophomore Kirsten Jackson, 18th, 18:58. The displacers were senior Ashley Stalzer, 66th, 20:11, and senior Angela Gonzalez, 74th, 20:17.

Oak Park head coach Kevin Smith said the Eagles prepared for 20 weeks for the meet, and all on the team were confident that the Oak Park runners were going to give their best effort.

“The good thing is that it materialized,” he said, adding that a large part of the team’s secondplace finish was “an incredible pop from Kelsey Conner. She moved up and ran as our third girl this time. She ran just a perfect race.”

Smith said that each girl was given an outline that detailed the course and how her performance could best benefit the team.

“At the very end with a quarter mile to go, she would be in about 15th place and there would be a group of girls to go get,” Smith said.

“We have a team that is only as good as its fifth runner. That puts all the burden on the No. 5 runner, Kirsten Jackson. I know that Kirsten took a lot of responsibility” because she thought she’d let the team down at the state qualifying meet at Mt. San Antonio College.

“She came out at state and she committed to stay on Kelsey Connor’s shoulders,” Smith said. “That was the difference. Generally the state course is about 10 to 15 seconds slower than Mt. SAC. Technically she should run 19:40 and she ran 18:58. That is unbelievable.”

Jackson’s time also gave Oak Park a team 44-second time gap from its first to its fifth runner, the fastest No. 5 runner in the entire state. “Both of those girls (Connor and Jackson) stepped up and the other girls did a great job, too.”

Radnoti said the goal for Thousand Oaks girls’ team for eight years now has been to win the state championship.

“The girls executed that and we’re really proud of them,” Radnoti said.

The Thousand Oaks boys’ team won a state divisional championship in 1993 and 1994.

“The girls are one behind them,” Radnoti said. “Our returning girls are going to see if they can tie (the boys) next year.”

Westlake, coached by Joe Snyder, finished in sixth place in Division II with 228 points.

Led by sophomore Jasmine Hayes, who took sixth in the race with a time of 19:37, the Warriors’ combined time was 1:38:05.

The next four Warrior runners after Hayes were, junior Kelly Adamski, 28th, 19:24; sophomore Victoria Smith, 43rd, 19:40; junior Brianna Alban, 59th, 19:52; and junior Jaclyn Borowski, 92nd, 20:26.

Westlake displacers were sophomore Morgan McLeod, 20:47, and sophomore Lucy Darago, 125th, 21:10.

One-hundred and eightyeight runners completed the Division II race, representing 23 schools.

Oak Park girls run in Portland at Nike Team Nationals

The Oak Park High girls’ cross-country team has been invited to the second annual Nike Team Nationals in Portland, Ore. Teams are selected from across the nation, based on regional rankings.

Kevin Smith, the Eagle head coach, said that he is not to serve in that capacity for the training of the team or for the meet.

Therefore, he will not be with the girls this weekend and instead Christina Lightfoot, mother of sophomore runner Courtney Lightfoot, will accompany the team. “She will not be so much in the role of coach as being a chaperone,” he said.

“This is the ultimate highlight to be one of about 18 schools invited to participate in this meet with the real reorganization being what the girls achieve,” Smith said.

The Royal High boys’ cross-country team, also among the nation’s top teams, has also been invited. Teams from each region (Northeast, Southeast, South, Midwest, Heartland, Southwest, Northwest and California), plus four at-large selections will make up the 20-team field.