WALNUT – Four Long Beach area cross country programs started their Saturday morning at Mt. San Antonio College needing a top seven team finish at the CIF-SS finals to advance to next weekend’s state championship in Fresno.
While St. John Bosco and Poly High’s boys and girls programs fell short, history was made when Warren won the school’s first cross country championship.
Warren’s boys beat national power Arcadia, 69-77, to earn a CIF-SS Division 1 championship behind junior standout Ben Gonzalez, who finished fourth among the 106-man field with a time of 14:45. The Bears’ Jonathan Rodriguez (15:01) and Michael Hernandez (15:02) were sixth and seventh respectively, to give Warren three top-10 runners.
“We started our freshman year getting to know each other and building trust, and everything we did from the first day led to this championship,” Gonzalez said. “We really believed in one another, and I think we ran our best race in our most important race of the year.”
Andres Barragan (15:14) was 22nd for Warren, and Faustino Diaz (15:29) was 35th for the champs.
“This is not only huge for us to win the school’s first championship, but also to beat Arcadia, who sets the standard nationally,” said Warren coach Ramon Miranda.
“We started a culture where everyone believed in each other and it was about the team and not the individual, and their selflessness as a team led to this championship.”
Poly High’s boys finished a disappointing 10th in the same race with freshman Hugo Novoa (15:31) finishing in 37th place and Colby Penn in 44th after crossing the finish line at 15:38.
St. John Bosco, which won its 20th consecutive league title earlier, did not have a good showing, as the Braves will not go back to Fresno for the sixth year in a row thanks to an 11th place finish in the Division 3 finals. Senior Gustavo Gonzalez (15:33) was 23rd, and Josh Lopez was 46th with a time of 16:04.
“We’re happy we won the 20th straight league title, but we had a really bad day today,” said St. John Bosco coach Tim McIntosh. “None of our kids ran their best race, and it just made for a disappointing day. We have three returning, so we’ll have a lot of work to do.”
Poly’s girls, looking to make their first appearance to state, finished 14th in the 16-team field and saw senior Jessica Gonzalez (18:29) finish in 38th place. The next best Jackrabbit was Mandy Wainfan (19:02), who ended a distant 68th. Los Alamitos finished 12th.
Downey’s Marissa Pluma was the only Viking competing, and the junior’s 18:26 was good enough for 34th and ahead of all seven Poly runners.
Great Oak easily claimed the girls Division 1 championship with five runners in the top 15. Its 34 team points was 60 less than second-place Trabuco Hills. Poly finished with 323.
In the girl’s Division 5 race, St. Matthias finished 14th and Avalon 16th.
