Up and down

Joseph Boo

ORANGE - Two Newport Beach area boys cross country teams competed

in Saturday’s Orange County Championship at Irvine Park with mixed

results.

While Newport Harbor High finished better than expected, Corona del Mar

came in last at 15th. Meanwhile, Costa Mesa only had three varsity

runners and was ineligible for team competition.

For the Sailors, their eighth-place finish in the varsity boys sweepstake

race was a definite sign of encouragement.

“The fact that we haven’t been ranked in the County Top 10 all year and

us finishing eighth is encouraging,” Newport Harbor Coach Bim Barry said.

Newport Harbor’s Doug Dukes finished 14th overall with a time of 15:48.

Chris McMillen was 21st for the Sailors, five seconds behind Dukes, and

Chris Landgren just missed the top 40, running a 16:21, which put him in

41st.

“Dukes gets better every week,” Barry said. “He’s a very strong finisher.

His last mile in the race was phenomenal.”

“In the big scheme of things, I knew we didn’t have a chance against the

best teams in the county. The fact that we beat some teams ranked ahead

of us is very encouraging.”

It is the grand picture that Barry concentrates on, and the Orange County

Championship was most useful because it showed the Sailors’ learning

curve.

“We showed some improvements,” he said. “But we have room for more

improvement.”

CdM on the other hand, was less than thrilled about it’s placement in the

varsity sweepstake race.

“We did not have a good day today,” CdM Coach Bill Sumner said. “We

finished 15th out of 15 schools.”

The big surprise for the Sea Kings was Travis Beardslee’s disappointing

run. He usually finishes close to the front of the race with Josh Yelsey.

“I was surprised about Beardslee,” Sumner said. “I have no idea what

happened.”

“He was running great in practice. Maybe it was the flu bug going around.

But he wasn’t in it from the start.”

Yelsey led the Sea Kings with a 16th-place finish with a time of 15:50.

Despite the 67th finish, Beardslee still had the second fastest time for

CdM with a 16:44. Judd Heitbrink was 85th, Dustin Hodges at 92nd and John

Grod at 96th were the other CdM runners in the top 100.

While disappointed about the finish, Sumner isn’t fretting, yet.

“I’m hoping they’ll move up in future meets,” he said. “If not, with two

juniors and a bunch of sophomores, they’ll definitely move up next year.”

Costa Mesa also fell victim to the flu bug. Over half of it’s varsity

boys team was missing and only three Mustangs ran in the Division III

race. Dasan Bushell had the fastest time for Costa Mesa with an 18:54,

which was 79th in the race. Rene Ortiz was second on the team with 20:00

and Thomas Payne ran a 20:30.