East County schools and runners were well represented at this year’s California state cross country championship meet Nov. 25 in Fresno. While not everyone can be a champion – team or individual – local runners did their best and were rewarded accordingly.
Alpine’s Liberty Charter placed sixth as a team in the Division V boys race after finishing third in its division at the San Diego Section finals Nov. 11 at Balboa Park’s Morley Field.
Senior Ivan Guzman led the pride of Lions across the finish line in 12th place among the 202 runners in the 5K race. Guzman timed 15:41.7 — well behind race-winner Eyan Turk (14:59.2), a junior from Woodland Christian.
Calvin Christian senior John Bitner was the top San Diego Section finisher in ninth place in 15:33.0, followed by Guzman. Francis Parker senior York Bourgeois (15:47.1) placed 15th as the No. 3 section place finisher.
Bourgeois won the Division V section individual title as a prelude to the state meet. Guzman finished fourth behind Santa Fe Christian junior Evan Smith (second) and Bitner (third). Liberty Charter finished third at the section finals. The top three teams in the division advanced to the state meet. The Lions trailed division champion Francis Parker and runner-up Calvin Christian at the section finals but proved to be the section’s highest-scoring team at the state meet.
Liberty Charter’s intrepid band of road warriors finished with 202 points to finish ahead of seventh-place Calvin Christian (245 points) and ninth place Francis Parker (251 points).
Lions head coach Daniel Sanchez said the team’s goal at the state finals was to place ahead of both Calvin Christian (section runner-up) and Francis Parker (section champion). Mission accomplished.
Besides Guzman, Liberty Charter’s five scorers also included senior Joel Bray (46th, 16:32.2), junior Aiden Burr (53rd, 16:42.5), senior Samuel Morales (81st, 17:08.2) and sophomore Caleb Acosta (86th, 17:10.0).
Crystal Spring Uplands won the state team championship with 111 points, followed by Yosemite (second, 130 points), San Francisco University (third, 143 points), Menlo (fourth, 183 points) and College Preparatory (fifth, 191 points).
Making the grade
The top three teams in Division II-V boys, Division I-II girls and Division IV-V girls qualified to advance to the state meet while the top two teams in Division I boys and the top four teams in Division III girls also did so.
Liberty Charter won last year’s Division V boys team title while led by Micah Sanchez, now at the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Even without Sanchez, the Lions proved to be a formidable foe this year.
“Micah is the reason the team is doing well,” Liberty Charter coach Daniel Sanchez explained. “This year’s team is actually better than last year. Everybody’s times have improved. Our sixth runner is faster than our second runner last year.”
Playing catch up to a superstar was obviously a big motivational factor and showed younger runners on the team what their own potential could be.
Liberty Charter finished on top of the 22 schools at the Frontier Conference finals.
The competition proved very competitive at this year’s section championship meet. Francis Parker won the team championship with 55 points, followed by Calvin Christian with 62 points and Liberty Charter with 66 points. Santa Fe Christian was a distant fourth with 111 points.
The Lions proved up to the task by placing their top five scorers among the top 20 finishers in the 132-deep field. All seven runners finished in the top 30.
