Congratulations to the boys cross country team who claimed 1st place at all levels at the Empire League Finals on Friday! The individual MVP of the Empire League goes to Talal Khan who won the varsity race in a very fine, 15:04 for the hilly, "Sunny Hills Invite" course at Craig Park. Joining Talal earning All League honors were: Angel Aguirre, 2nd place; Jose Gutierrez, 3rd place; Erick Pacheco, 4th place and Luis Avellaneda in 10th place! Alex Torres made a big breakthrough evidenced by his 14th place and a PR of 16:18 as did Paul Goslin, 20th place and a PR 16:39.

Roman Gutierrez is the 2007 Frosh/Soph League Champion! He ran a personal record, 16:36 which is amazing since his best 2006 time was 21:39! The Tigers went 1st through 8th in this event. Roman was followed by Sean Krinik, Steven Suarez, Kent Woodling, Tayyab Khan, Troy Czegledy, Ruben Aguilar and Diego Baiza. Big breakthrough runs were made by Manny Sanchez, Daniel Diaz, Jesus Escobar, Moises Gonzalez, Ivan Hernandez, Mathias Riegg, Matthew Vo, Alex Koster, Victor Varela, Patrick Simpelo, and Shivnay Kumar and Kamran Pakdamanian, all improving a minute or more from the previous best times!

The JV team was bolstered by the addition of three sophomores, Josh Rangel, Connor McCullough and Bryan Escalante, who made the difference and ensured the JV League Championship! The JV team placed 1st at the Challenge meet and 2nd at the Finals to a very strong Cypress team, good for 1st overall. Ivan Cisneros led the Tigers with his 5th place showing, running a PR for his efforts! Also running best times were: Josh, Bryan, Connor, Juan Jauregui, Brian Tsu, and Omar Hernandez.

Valencia won their Prelim heat and advance to the CIF Finals to fight for the top 7 spots next week! 

Talal Khan once again led the team with a unstressed 2nd place finish. Angel Aguirre, Erick Pacheco and Jose Gutierrez all finished in the top 20 with Luis Avellaneda in 21st. Luis had a great day, running his best time at Mt SAC and really closing the 1-5 team time gap (:43 seconds this week). Erick Pacheco looks really sharp and ready to go, and Angel is getting more and more comfortable with faster paces. Alex Torrres and Paul Goslin stepped up, took a chance to help the team with aggressive mile splits!

The team took care of business this week and with a few strategic adjustments and our usual "Champions run their best when it counts" philosophy, we hope to return to Fresno and the State Championship! This is a really special group of athletes who have had their share of weirdness this season (fire, wind, smoke, rain!), but have kept their eyes on our goal and have been deterred by nothing thus far!

Woo-hoo, back to the State Meet at Woodward Park in Fresno, pack your bags! The Tigers finished 5th at CIF Finals Division I, set a school record for the Mt SAC course team time, and make it to the State Meet for the 8th year in a row!

Talal Khan placed 15th to lead the team followed by stepped up performances by Angel Aguirre, Erick Pacheco, Jose Gutierrez and Luis Avellaneda. Our top 5 combined for a record setting team time of 78:20, breaking the previous record of 79:06! Angel, Erick, Jose and Luis all set personal records for Mt SAC as well. Our challenge was to run a smart first mile, then make a statement on mile 3 passing as many runners as possible, which was brilliantly executed!

We are extremely excited to have the opportunity to run at the State Meet, it is a great course for us and an honor to represent our school and the Southern Section. Let's have a great short week of practice, then off to Fresno!

Link to more photos 

 Great race, great season!“Champions find a way to run their best when it counts”, and we did it againthis season. Our best races were CIF Finals and State!

The Tigers finished in 6th place at the State Meet in Division I competition and put together their 2nd fastest team time ever on that course (80:25 which is 16:05 per runner average on the 3.1 mile course)!

Wow, Talal, Erick, Sean andLuis all ran PR’s! Erick was amazing, a brilliant breakthrough race placing 31st, Talaldelivered as our strong front runner yet again in 15th place and Luis did a terrific job ofleading Sean and both helped each other to fantastic times (85 and 87th place). Alex dropped intothe 16’s on the State course! Jose (62nd place) was so tough finishing the season with kneesthat hurt on climbs, and Angel (74th place) got out little faster than usual and held on tofinish with all he had! Alternates, Paul and Roman, and freshman, Tayyab andTroy, gained valuable experience to help the team get to Fresno again nextyear! Woo-hoo!

1. Talal Khan 15:33    2. Erick Pacheco 15:56   3. Jose Gutierrez 16:12    4. Angel Aguirre 16:17    5. Sean Krinik 16:25    6. Luis Avellaneda 16:27   7. Alex Torres 16:58  (Woodward Park 5k times)