Sage, CdM girls make state cross-country meet

WALNUT — With four freshmen, two sophomores and a junior in the top seven runners, the future looks bright for the Sage Hill School girls’ cross country team.

But on Saturday morning at Mt. San Antonio College, the Lightning showed that the future is now.

Sage Hill turned in the best performance in program history, finishing third in Division 5 at the CIF Southern Section Championships. The Lightning girls advance to next weekend’s CIF State Championships in Fresno for the first time since 2008.

The other Newport-Mesa team to advance to the state meet is the Corona del Mar High girls, in Division 3. The Sea Kings finished fifth, to move on for the second straight year.

For the Lightning girls, it has been a quick ascension to the top. Last year, only junior Julia Lowe advanced to state. Freshman Emma Dickerson was seventh individually in Division 5 on Saturday, in 19:20, earning a medal in a post-race ceremony. Dickerson was followed by Lowe in 16th in 20:15. Freshman Maya Jaffe (32nd, 20:51), sophomore Ashton Carroll (53rd, 22:11) and freshman Olivia Lowe (54th, 22:12) also scored for the Lightning.

“[We were] hoping to get history, Sage Hill history,” said Jaffe, knowing that the Lightning bettered the previous record fourth-place finish in CIF of 2006.

Now they will focus on bigger goals. That 2006 team finished seventh at the state meet, and Coach Nate Miller said he thinks this year’s group can improve on that to make history again. They nearly finished second in the section in Division 5, finishing with 133 points to 123 for Pacifica Christian. Flintridge Prep won the title.

“I thought we ran really well,” Miller said. “I still think there’s room for improvement next week … [but] it’s a great experience for them to be here and do so well. They’re all really good teammates and they get along, and that’s been a big difference in the improvement in our team. That also makes me super-excited about the future.”

The CdM girls also are excited. They didn’t have to sweat it out like last year, when they finished seventh in Division 3 to take the final qualifying spot for state. This year’s fifth-place finish is the Sea Kings’ best since also finishing fifth in 2011.

Junior Raquel Powers led the way with a 12th-place individual finish in 18:29. Senior Lilly Schmidt finished 20th in 18:53, and senior Jacqueline Choe finished 30th in 19:19. Seniors Hannah Crane (38th, 19:30) and Katie Correnty (45th, 19:46) also scored for CdM.

“Today the seniors came through,” CdM Coach Bill Sumner said. “It was Lilly, Jackie and Hannah, and they came through. We’ve been having bad luck, because we’d lose one of them to a cold or a sprained ankle or something. We got all of them together on the start line, healthy, and they did what they’re supposed to do and we’re going to state.

“Lilly was bugging me all year almost every day, that she was taking this team to state. Now you can tell her, she can stop bugging me. She can stop bugging me. It’s done. Now we’ve got to go and see what we can do there.”

Schmidt was indeed ecstatic after Saturday’s race.

“We worked so long for this and it really does feel great,” she said. “It’s only been our motto since the beginning of the summer. I mean, after last year, all we wanted to do was go to state again.”

Powers stayed within the top 10 runners or so the whole way. Her time of 18:29 was the fastest among all Newport-Mesa female competitors. After being interviewed, she made sure to give her older sister Ashlee, who starred at CdM and now runs at UCLA, a big hug.

“I felt really good,” Raquel Powers said. “The first mile I went in at 5:30 and I was kind of scared about that, because that’s the fastest I’ve ever done the first mile. But I just tried to not focus on the time but focus on the people, staying with the pack. I think that helped a lot.”

Sumner said he knew his team couldn’t compete with the top teams in Division 3, champion Esperanza and Palos Verdes. He said the goal on Saturday was to run cautiously and try to make state. Next weekend, though, will be different.

“We have tried [to beat Esperanza and Palos Verdes before] a couple of ways, but we couldn’t do it,” Sumner said. “We weren’t going to try today. We were going to try to get to the state meet. Now, next week, all of the chips are on the table. All in for the state meet, 100%.”

Sage Hill’s boys’ team finished 14th in Division 5. Miller highlighted the running of his strong senior group led by Cameron Knollenberg (41st, 17:29) and Calvin Shimano (79th, 18:29). Luke Nataupsky (85th, 18:40), Kylen Patel (92nd, 18:56) and Matt Warden (96th, 19:10) also scored.

CdM and Newport Harbor’s boys’ teams did not really have days to remember. The Sea Kings placed 16th of 16 teams in Division 3, while the Sailors did the same in Division 2.

Senior Thomas Robertson paced CdM in 34th in 16:11, followed by Leif Hellgren (68th, 16:47), Matt Paragas (84th, 17:06), Daniel Le (101st, 17:30) and Joshua Means (107th, 17:44).

Robertson described the Sea Kings’ day as a “blooper reel.”

“When your mind’s telling you to stop, you can’t stop, and we just let our mind control what we did,” Robertson said. “We’re all disappointed, of course. Especially as a senior, I need to do better in track, so that I have something to look back on. Definitely during the offseason, we’re going to be putting in work every day.”

Newport junior Ben Wilson, the Sunset League champion, paced the Sailors in 35th in 16:17. Erik Herrera was 64th in 16:40, while Alexis Garcia (77th, 17:05), Mark Field (85th, 17:17) and Anthony Agama (99th, 17:41) also scored.

“Awful,” said Wilson, who hoped to advance to state with a good race but missed out on the fifth and final individual qualifying spot by 33 seconds. “I’m not sure if I just wasn’t prepared or we peaked too early. I went out the first mile faster than I thought, I felt pretty good, but then after the second mile it just all went downhill. I just couldn’t hold it together.”

Still, Coach Nowell Kay stressed that the Sailors achieved their team goal of making the Division 2 finals, and they will lose just one scoring senior in Herrera.

Costa Mesa junior Elliot Hachac-Flores was the lone individual runner to compete. He finished 19th in the boys’ Division 4 race, in 16:14. He narrowly missed advancing to the state meet for the first time. Hachac-Flores finished as the sixth individual not on a team advancing to state, just eight seconds behind fifth-place Isaac Acosta of Lompoc, who took the last individual spot.

“I tried to give all that I could,” Hachac-Flores said. “The first mile started off pretty good, and then once we got to the hills everyone started slowing down a bit. That was where I just fell back, and I couldn’t catch up … [but] I got a year of experience. Next year, hopefully I’ll do a lot better.”