Wow, what a season !!! I'm very happy with and proud of everyones efforts at League Final. The team had 24 P.R's, including 5 on Varsity. Earned 11 individual medals, 3 more then last year. Jill raced to an All League spot. Varsity cut their gap down to 61 seconds and team time by 3:51 minutes from League Challenge! The JV are Champions and the F/S repeated as Champions.

Varsity did everything that was asked of them, they raced very well, they did everything right. To semi qoute Coach Learn "The results are much more impressive than a 6th place finish looks. All the teams were so close. I see no reason not to expect the team to have at least 5 runners under 20 minutes (in the 19teens) next year !!!"     Well there you have it, 5 runners in the 19 teens with a 45 second gap for a CIF spot, that is our goal for next season !!! 

Congradts to Rosie for winning the JV race and Rachel Hatter for winning the F/S race. To Jill for placing 9th for All League on the Varsity Level. To Sarah and Courtney on moving up to Varsity. Many other outstanding performances by Sarah and Laila on Varsity; Rachel Pham, Carissa, Ashley Salazar and Meghna on F/S; Ale, Bianca and Danica on J.V. Too many to mention, but there were 24 P.R's at Finals, so there were many other outstanding performances too. Everyone raced tough and outside their comfort zone, you guys wanted it and it showed.

Many thanks to the team Captains: Sejal, Marilu, Maricruz and assistants: Sharon and Sarah G. for making my coaching job alot easier this year. You allowed me more freedom to focus on coaching 47 team members!!!

Thank you for a wonderful XC season!     Coach Garcia.

Click headline for Mt. Sac. web site.

Saturday, October 24th. Be at Kraemer  by 12 Noon. Bus leaves at 12:15 P.M.

Bus returns about 5:45 P.M.

Races: Freshman Girls  2:18 P.M.    Sophomores 3:04 P.M.       Jr/Sr  4:03 P.M. 

Headline links to OCC website for complete results.

The team continues to make good progress with 19 new P.R's !  A few other missed P.R's by 2 to 5 seconds, oh so close.

The F/S team took 3rd place out of 17 teams ! The F/S were lead by Jill, followed very closely by Courtney, Sarah, Laila, Rachel H, and Rachel P. all of whom medaled. Gap time was 70 seconds between Jill and Rachel H. Goal is under 60 seconds.  Outstanding efforts by Emily, Makenzie and all the F/S runners.

On the J.V. level, Danica and Vivian continue to improve with some new P.R's.

The Varsity was lead by Dea and Sejal during a very hot part of the morning. The whole group ran with good effort.

Remember our goal is to be at our best by League Finals and the invites are training runs to help us get there !

Its not how we start the season, but how we progress with each race and finish the season !! Well the team is doing exactly that. Improving with each race. Becoming more mentally tough, learning how to race out of their comfort zone ! Learning to pace and pack it up. The result is a great day of racing with 28 P.R.'s !!  Oh, lets not forget...the F/S and J.V. took first place ! Varsity did well against some very tough competion, Varsity will continue to improve in the next few weeks. 

J.V. started the afternoon off by taking first place. Lead by Bianca, Rosie and Ale. Rosie did a wonderful job of pacing the team to help take 3 of the top 5 spots. Helping to secure the first place finish were Marilu and Hinal for the J.V. top five.  Rounding off the J.V. and contributing to the team success were Liz C., Danica, Maricruz, Madie, Raquel, Nicole S., Lis M., and Chelcy.

F/S was lead by Sarah, Courtney  and Rachel P. to take the first 3 spots!  7 of the 10 top spots were Valencia runners, this helped to earn the victory for the F/S!  The top seven were  Alyssa A., Meghna, Ashley S., and Emily. Rachel P. continues to make great strides with each race and Alyssa has learned to pace herself to get a good result. All team members had a good race as the new runners continue to learn how to race tough.  Rounding off the F/S are Mallory, Mak, Nicole M., Kajori, Aretha, CK, Biola, Haily, Rachel A., Minji, Madison, Amy, Caitlin, Yadira, and Mary. Nicole did a great job of helping pace some of the freshman.

The Varsity team was lead by Jill, followed with a very strong performance by Sejal. Dea came in next. Dea did a good job of pacing the team early on. Eden, Laila and Rachel H. followed closely to the finish line. There was only a 74 second gap between Jill and Laila, great job of packing it up !  There were 4 P.R.'s on the Varsity team !

Great racing today!!! Now its time to focus on the next three weeks of training to get ready and tuned up for League Finals on the 5th of November !

GO TO HANDOUTS: 2009 BREA INVITE INVITE  For complete Results !!!! 

Great Racing today !!! The team continues to be very competive ! You are learning to race as a team and packing it up.  Your pacing is getting better and the team as a whole is making steady progress on a weekly basis. REMEMBER, this was a 3.1 mile course and not a 3.0 course.

The Seniors and Juniors had a good day at the Brea Invite. Dea and Sejal lead the Juniors in a tough Varsity race. Rosie had an outstanding race, her second time in the top ten this season! Bianca, Ale, Hinal and Marilu rounded off the top seven in the Seniors and Juniors races.  The group placed 18th place out of 25 tough teams.

The F/S team had a good day too. Taking 3rd place out of 26 teams.  Jill, Eden, Laila, Rachel H., Sarah, Carissa and Ashley S. were the top seven for the F/S team. Mary Kanode ran her first race today, good job Mary !!!

All team members contributed to the teams success today.

There were five runners with a course P.R.: Jill, Eden, Meghna, Makenzie and Hailey !

There were SIX runners with a P.R. and this was accomplished on a 3.1 mile course:  Madison O. Biola, Aretha, Rachel Aldama, Minji, and Sydney !!!

Great racing ladies, on to the League Challenge on Thursday the 8th of October. 

2009 SUNNY HILLS INVITE

After a week of training in HOT weather, we were ready to race in some cooler weather. NOT happening! The hot weather did prepare the team for the Sunny Hills invite and the team responsed very well to the very warm climate on race day.

The Seniors started things off. Bianca lead the seniors with a time of 23:19, a 1:01 improvement over last years race and missing her P.R. by 3 seconds. Hinal and Lizbeth M. both had P.R's. Marilu ran very well in the warm weather.

Juniors were lead by Dea and Sejal, both of whom medaled !! Rosie and Ale ran a very strong race. Dea, Madison T., Nicole S., Raquel A., all had P.R's in the race. Vivian ran her first Cross Country race, good job Vivian !!!

Sophomores Jill and Eden continue to set the pace for the team. Not  to be left out is Lialia with a new P.R. All three of them medaled !!! Biola and Arthea also obtained a new P.R, good job ! Syndey also ran her first Cross Country race !! 

The Freshman continue to improve as a team as nine of them had P.R's today. Courtney and Sarah lead the group. Followed closely by Rachel Pham, Ashley S., Emily  and C.K., all had P.R's.  Other P.R. performances were turned by Amy, Minji, and  Yadria !  Courtney medaled !

Go to the Link section  and link to Sunny Hills Invite for complete results. Also check out the Sunny Hills photos.

Great racing !!! Lets have a good week of practice and get ready for the Brea Invite this Saturaday and LEAGUE PRELIMS the following Thursday.

Our first race of the season and Wow ! There were some good surprises and some very good pack racing !!! Our top seven were 1:59 apart. Once they all race together, I'm sure the gap will close up to under a minute.

There was only one P.R. ( Eden), buts that okay there were quite a few runners close to their P.R's. We will see some P.R's in the next few race. Remember that we want to make progress with each race.

Seniors were lead by Bianca, followed by Alyssa Lees. New runners Hinal and Madeline had an outstanding first race. Mari and Lisbeth continue to get stronger.

Juniors were lead by  Deaana  and Sejal in a strong race. Rosie really stepped it up today. Ale looked great in her first XC race in about a year. Danica and Liz  rounded off the top seven. Madison T, Nicole S, and Raquel A. had an outstanding effort in their XC race ever!

Jill lead the Sophomores and all team members. Sophomores had the fastest team time and smallest time gap. Eden kept it very close to Jill, good job Eden ! Not to be left out of the party, I mean pack, Laila, Rachel H, and Carissa had a nice pack of their own, and were followed closely by Mallory. Meghna and Kajori with limited summer training ran an excellent race, they will only get stronger as the season moves along. Makenzie, Hailey, Nicole M, and Biola also had a good race and workout. 

Not be out done, the freshman group also had some great pack runnning with a gap of only 37 seconds between #1 and #5 runner !! Now thats a PACK ! Courtney lead all freshmen, followed very closely by Sarah, Ashley S,Alyssa A, and Emily. Outstanding effort were given by all freshmen: Rachel P, Lauren, Chanchal,Madison O, Yadira, Amy, and Rachel A  in their first XC invite race.

Medal winners were: Jill, Eden, Deaana, Courtney, Sarah, and Ashley S.  Great racing !

There are more P.R's and medals out there so lets go earn them with continued good effort in our work outs. Get out of your comfort zone during the training and the race. This whole team has alot of POTENTIAL to be faster. It has good packing, so now lets work on our speed.

Very important not to miss the Saturday work outs !!!

Great race ladies,

Coach.

Its a Saturday with a week to go before our first offical race of the season. School starts on Tuesday. The team is at 49 team members, many new runners that have never race. How do we get them ready for their first race?

Why not hold a Intra Squad competition ? We have enough runners ! Well thats what we did on this nice Saturday morning. We divided the team into five teams of seven and off to the races we went.

The Violet Team lead by Jill won the event.  The Brown team was lead by Eden, the Blue by MariCruz, The Red by Sejal and the Green by Ale. It was a fun morning with the new runners  gaining valuable experience for their first race and the veterans sharpening their racing skills!

We had a parents meeting (remember the focus time zone) and food for everbody after the event. I think its calls for a repeat next season !

Want to thank Carmen and Tammie for helping out with the event and the food signups for the invites...

Also want thank all the drivers that helped us get to our trials during the summer.  Mr. and Mrs. Grimser, Mr. Seymour, Mr. Lopez, Mrs Llewellyn, Mrs. Aguilar, Mrs. Kahlon and Carmen. Mr. and Mrs Avila for letting us use their 14 person van for the Big Bear trip. Thank you all from the team and Coach !!!

The annual Big Bear trip was a great success. Twenty team members attended, of which eleven went for the first time to camp. This included four Freshman: Lauren, Amy, Rachel, and Courtney.  The team put in some of the toughest 24 miles of trail runs this summer. Sejal and Dea put in an extra tough two miles with Sarah on the final morning there. It was not all hard work, there was some fun to be had too!  Check out the photo album.

Our first race is on the 12th of September at Laguna Hills Invite, so lets continue to train smart and hard in our workouts.