The Escalon Cross Country team traveled to Ceres River Bluff Regional Park this past Wednesday, Sept. 28 for the second Trans-Valley League cluster meet.
The JV girls opened up the races with a fun showing of pack running, said head coach Michael Bower.
“Several runners bunched up shortly into the race and they found themselves passing one another and working together,” he explained.
Sophomore Kali Castellanos came in first for the JV Lady Cougars and 10th overall in a time of 17:01, followed by sophomore Charlotte Shaddix (17:04), sophomore Emma Berchtold (17:17) and freshman Madelyn Fahey (17:25).
“Being on a new course, and a somewhat challenging one compared to our usual training spots of orchards and local parks, the girls really went after it and started the day on the right foot. It was fun to watch them pass one another, and I hope they use their closeness to pull even farther ahead,” Bower noted.
On the JV boys side, sophomore Daniel Bagadiong continued his impressive showing, as he started off aggressively and held off a trio of competitors to finish third in his race in a personal record time of 12:41.
The rest of the scoring boys team bunched up, with sophomore Jake Sawyer in 14:52, freshman Matix Trimble in 15:04, freshman Theodore Harp in 15:17, and sophomore Luis Verduzco in 15:36.
The varsity girls finished fourth as a team but had some great individual improvements.
“Sophomore Kathy Romero moved up five places from TVL 1 to finish fifth overall in a time of 23:18,” Bower said. “Senior Megan Fahey and sophomore Lauren Rodriguez rounded out our first three finishers with their first sub-25 times of the season, running 24:41 and 24:50 respectively.”
Juniors Destiny Reyes (26:09) and Hannah Wampler (26:25) ran some of their best times after a long day of FFA competitions and should be ready to knock on the door of sub 25 soon, the coach added.
The varsity boys continued the pattern of pack running with the scoring five finishing in less than a minute spread: Junior Andrew Morales (20:04), sophomore Nate Millard (20:42), junior Jose Calderon (20:50), junior Julian Gonzalez (20:57), and junior Marcos Grajeda (21:08).
“We had a bit of a bumpy start to the season with getting everyone out to practice, but they are really starting to come together. Having that pack close together is a huge benefit for training and feeding off of one another to have more good days of training,” Bower said. “I’m hopeful we can move them up a chunk of time and keep them together. Overall, it was a solid day, where the teams continued to handle themselves well: a new park and course can go a lot of different ways, but they had the right attitudes and went after it. We will continue to work on the things we need to improve and look forward to being back at the end of the month to see how much we can improve.”
The cross country team will focus on training this week. On Tuesday, Oct. 11, they will run Purple and Gold 2: an intra-team scrimmage starting at the EHS track, in which runners will be able to compare their progress to their early season race; and then travel to the Mariner Invite at Hayward High School on Oct. 15.
