SILVERADO – JSerra’s girls cross country team showed off its talent and depth Saturday with a team victory in the Orange County Championships at Oak Canyon Park.
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The Lions won the girls sweepstakes team championship despite missing two of their top athletes.
On a warm, windy day, Reese Holley led JSerra by winning the race with a time of 16 minutes and 18.3 seconds on the 3-mile course near Irvine Lake in Santiago Canyon.
Holley finished 14 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher, Santa Margarita senior Carol Dye.
JSerra has won the meet’s girls sweepstakes team title in four of the past five seasons.
JSerra sophomores Maya Pawlowicz and Brooklyn Tennant were unavailable Saturday because of minor injuries.
Pawlowicz and Tennant are valuable runners. Tennant finished 11th in the Woodbridge Classic, which might be California’s most important cross country meet until CIF sectional competition begins.
Pawlowicz finished 15th in the Woodbridge Classic to help JSerra win the meet’s top-division team championship.
JSerra also had the girls sweepstakes race’s fourth-place finisher, junior Kaia Streadbeck (16:44.8), and the 15th-place finisher, senior Hunter Nelligan (17:30.3).
The Lions’ team total was 59 points. Santa Margarita was second at 99 points. Yorba Linda was third with 120 points.
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Holley was pleased with her individual result.
“I’m just proud of the effort I put out today,” said Holley who finished third in the Orange County Championships last season. “These were really rough conditions out here today, super windy and it was kind of like the same as it was two years ago in my sophomore year. My sophomore year, the wind just made me want to quit.”
She was happier that she led her team, which is No. 1 in the CIF State Division 4 rankings, to another team championship.
“I’m always putting my best out there for my team and our team goals,” she said. “Considering we were down two of our top five girls today, we knew coming in we had to step it up.”
Woodbridge senior Aidan Antonio won the boys sweepstakes race for the second year in a row. His winning time was 14 minutes, 10.3 seconds.
San Clemente senior Yohan Anderson was second at 14:19.1.
Trabuco Hills won the boys sweepstakes team championship. The Mustangs, led by the third-place finish of junior Dresden Taylor (14:20.2) and the fourth-place finish of senior Lucan Clemens (14:20.8), had 55 points. Trabuco Hills had not won a Orange County Championships boys team championship since 2011.
Woodbridge was second with 69 points and San Clemente was third with 106 points.
Antonio said his No. 1 goal Saturday was victory.
“I just had to go for the win,” said Antonio, last year’s Orange County boys cross country athlete of the year. “I wanted to get out there and defend my title … I’m really happy with that.”
Antonio said the windy conditions were prominent in his race strategy,
“I knew I had to run more of a tactical race,” he said. “The middle mile was really slow and I knew that last mile was going to be tough. I was able to put the hammer down on that last mile, and that was pretty good.”
The next big race on the CIF Southern Section cross country schedule is the Mt. SAC Invitational on Saturday, Oct. 24, at Mt. San Antonio College.
The CIF-SS prelims are Nov. 13 and 14. CIF-SS finals are Nov. 21 at Mt. San Antonio College.
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The CIF State meet is Nov. 28 at Woodward Park in Fresno.