Attending the 7th Edition of the Inland Empire Challenge, Corona High had great expectations for all of its athletes. Recently criticized by the coaching staff for not racing through the toughest part of recent races, the athletes responded in grand style. Coach Gardner walked away very impressed by how much effort each athlete gave as we saw a number of personal bests recorded on this day! Each athlete was challenged by the goal of running faster than their time at Woodbridge and most acheived that goal.
With the sun still coming up and the Fall chill in the air, Fernando Cerda got things going for us in the Boys' Sophomore Race! A smart start to go along with staying aggressive with the front pack paid dividends as he motored to a 16:22 and a 4th place finish! His time actually ended up being the 6th fastest of all sophomores in the county. Thomas Fitch looked supurb as he broke 19:00 for his first time and had a great deal of energy left over as evidenced by his incredible kick! Looking to the future, Lorenzo Marquez is making it look easier every time out with a VERY impressive 17:34 effort!
Next up, we had our newbies in the freshman boys race! Continuing to look stronger and more confident, they all ran better than anticipated. Most impressive was Antonio Garcia breaking 18:00 while it was awesome to see Casey Langdale bounce back from Wednesday's race. Michael Sveinson continues to recover from a head cold but with another solid effort. We definately see several of these boys improved by over a minute by next year! Speaking of improving, we witnessed a EIGHT minute improvement! Yes, Brandon Shaw, in only his 2nd race, improved by almost eight minutes and in a much more determined effort!
In our girls' freshman race, our main goal was to see the girls racing closer together. Not only did we see that but we saw them put up their best efforts of the season. Lauren Cochran posted our 7th fastest time of the day in 20:17, while she was closely followed by Alexxis Martin in 20:36! This was the 2nd race in a row that Lauren was in our top seven. Alexxis is turning into a very solid runner as she ran 29 seconds faster than she did at Woodbridge. By far her best race of the season was Liz Ortiz (21:19) while Amanda Grooters (21:58) was on the front end of a nice pack featuring Alexis Sabala (22:04) and April Lawson (22:07). The most improvement we saw here today was Alexis Sabala as she had yet to break 24:00 here in 2007! Lacking confidence should no longer be a problem for her! Finally, Sara Patterson also rebounded very well from several 'off' races with an impressive 24:16! These girls walked away with a nice 4th place finish against a competitive field.
Now the real stress and wonderment crept in as our Varsity Boys laced up for their race. Coach Gardner wanted the boys to go after Upland (#9 in CIF) as Murrieta Valley's boys (ranked #1 in the state) were going after the overall course team record. Well, it wasn't an "A" race by any means, but in the end, our boys emerged with a HUGE 3rd place trophy, missing Upland for a mere four points! We shattered our previous best team time on the course with a stellar 78:06 performance. We felt that if everything clicked well, our boys would be around that team time. This ranks as one of the best efforts in Corona High history as our boys continue on their mission to become the first team in school history to break 80:00 on the much tougher Mt. SAC course. Raul Arcos finished a solid 7th place with a time of 15:07, but cramped up the last 800 meters as he was making a strong move to take over 4th place. Running like a young man who's been doing this for years, Michael Gauger set the goal of breaking the freshman course record of 15:28 (held by the same boy who held the overall course record)! Cross this one off of the list folks as Michael's incredible consistency throughout the race paved the way for a 15:24.8!!! Meanwhile, Alan Cuevas was slightly off today, if you want to call a 15:33 a little off! He was the 2nd fastest sophomore of the entire day and #1 in the county. He was right behind Upland's #2 as we had a 44-51 edge over them after three athletes. Meanwhile, Patrick Mynes ran another good race but was unable to hold on with the other two. With Mt. SAC around the corner, we'll see Patrick right back up there! One of the true highlights of the day and something Coach Gardner was truly pegging as a key element to success today was our #5. Needless to say, we walked away pleased as Chase Williams ran another great race with a solid 16:04 and followed right behind by Franklin Sloat's 16:08! Sloat improved by 90 seconds on this same course! The greatest improvement from Woodbridge was Chase's 36 second gap! Fighting a cold two weeks ago is definately behind Mr. Williams! Not being overlooked was the pleasant return of Josh Verdone. After losing two weeks to patiently heal from an IT Band issue, Josh put in an awesome race and with a couple of weeks of consistent training, he could very well be right there back in that #5 slot he inhabited at the Woodbridge Invite. Our boys continue to shine. Sidenote: We would have beat Santiago today by a score of 22-37!!! What was that 25-32 stuff last Wednesday? We put eight boys ahead of their #4 and that includes their #2 who did not race. Another nice stat for all of you - Corona's boys had 6 of the top 23 underclassmen from Riverside County and 3 of the top 8 freshmen and sophomores combined. But, to humble our boys - they will move down to #4 in the Riverside County records. La Sierra got us by two points when you single out the marks from county squads only.
In their toughest race of the season, we are very proud of Varsity Girls. Racing against four squads ranked in the Top 12 for Division I, we knew our girls would run fast based solely on the level competition. Well...they did! Malaysia Alexander continues to show improvement across the board as she ran faster than last year by 31 seconds in moving up to 10th place with an 18:04. Her time was only 8 seconds behind Ashley Evans' time last year, which won the race! But, the true highlight in this race, was Natalia Richeri. She has hit her stride and now looks like the same girl we saw in 2006! And, her favorite course by far is Mt. SAC. Brieanna Pantele ran 44 seconds faster than last season but was disappointed that she lost contact with Natalia. B.B. will be back up there with Natalia in no time! Christina Ledesma is still fighting the effects of losing two weeks to heal a sprained ankle as attacked this race during the first half. She ran a great race and by CIF, she'll be able to maintain that pace the whole race. She raced to a 19:20 just behind a strong effort from Reyna Gutierrez! Reyna has gone from 21:30 in 2005 to 19:56 in 2006 to 19:19 here in 2007. Sandwiched in between our girls was a strong effort from Jossie Munoz. This was Jossie's best race of the season thus far and we're rest assured that she has her best races awaiting her down the road. Our girls finished 5th place here in 2007, but get this - our girls would have won last year's race!!! We still have some work to do but the tremendous improvement from each girl is great to see! We had a 45 second gap at the two mile mark and that extended out to 75 seconds that last mile. So, the girls will need to finish that last mile with a stronger push and maintain better contact with one another. But, as a whole - we are faster than at this time last year and look mentally tougher.
We'll highlight our JV races soon enough.....
GIRLS' BEST MARKS
**Ashley Evans (2006) 17:56.5
*Malaysia Alexander (2007) 18:04.5
-Natalia Richeri (2007) 18:13.4
***Ashley Evans (2005) 18:19.4
**Malaysia Alexander (2006) 18:35.2
*Brieanna Pantele (2007) 18:51.2
***Malaysia Alexander (2005) 19:04.6
-Jossie Munoz (2007) 19:16.0
*Reyna Gutierrez (2007) 19:19.6
***Christina Ledesma (2007) 19:20.9
-Crystal Binoeder (2006) 19:30.1
*Bianca Aguirre (2005) 19:30.3
**Brieanna Pantele (2006) 19:34.5
*Michelle Beyer (2005) 19:37.6
**Elizabeth Sanchez (2005) 19:38.2
*Crystal Binoeder (2005) 19:43.3
***Brieanna Pantele (2005) 19:46.7
**Reyna Gutierrez (2006) 19:48.7
***Corinna Gutierrez (2006) 19:51.6
-Michelle Beyer (2006) 19:54.2
**Natalia Richeri (2005) 19:55.2
***Lauren Cochran (2007) 20:17.7
**Corinna Gutierrez (2007) 20:18.5
*Katie Anderson (2007) 20:26.1
-Tiffany Akaniro (2007) 20:30.5
BOYS' BEST MARKS
-Raul Arcos (2007) 15:07.4
*Raul Arcos (2006) 15:18.2
***Michael Gauger (2007) 15:24.8
-Geron Craig (2005) 15:32.8
**Alan Cuevas (2007) 15:33.8
**Patrick Mynes (2006) 15:49.5
*Patrick Mynes (2007) 15:56.2
*Chase Williams (2007) 16:04.3
*Franklin Sloat (2007) 16:08.1
-Damien Thompson (2006) 16:15.0
-Josh Verdone (2007) 16:17.5
**Fernando Cerda (2007) 16:22.0
***Alan Cuevas (2006) 16:26.8
-Cody Langdale (2006) 16:28.3
**Chase Williams (2006) 16:32.4
*Raul Arcos (2005) 16:36.9
*Ricky Nolan (2006) 16:47.1
-Joey Casim (2007) 16:47.2
*Damien Thompson (2005) 16:48.6
-Greg Miller (2006) 16:48.9
*Logan Shryock (2007) 16:56.6
**Logan Shryock (2006) 16:59.8
*Josh Verdone (2006) 17:00.5
**Nate Layman (2006) 17:07.3
*Cody Langdale (2005) 17:08.5
