HUNTINGTON BEACH-After nearly two decades, the Edison girls cross country team has officially returned to the top of the Sunset League mountain.
Julia Sienski won the individual league title to spark the Chargers to their first league title since 1994 at the 2013 Sunset League Cross Country Finals Saturday at Central Park.
“It’s unbelievable to be doing this well and to win a league title for the first time since 1994,” Chargers coach Jeannie Formosa said. “The girls know that there is still work to be done.”
Sienski keyed the Chargers title-winning performance with a strong individual effort. She managed to take the lead between the first and second mile of the race and maintained her advantage throughout the rest of the race, finishing with a winning time of 17:53.
She is the first Chargers runner to win the individual league title since former all-county standout Hillary Hayes won her second straight title in 2008.
“Coach told me to surge after I passed the first mile and to try and take the lead,” Sienski said. “After that, my whole goal was to try and win this race to help my team get first place.”
Formosa credited Sienski’s ability to properly execute pre-race strategy as a big key her title-winning effort.
“For this race, I gave her a specific and detailed plan and she is at a point where she can take that instruction and follow through with it,” Formosa said.
Marina’s Eileen Stressling closed well over the final mile to finish second in a time of 17:58, with Huntington Beach’s Cassie Durgy coming in third with a time of 17:59.
Both runners qualified as individuals for the CIF-SS Divisional Preliminaries.
The Chargers had all five scoring runners place in the top 20 and finish in sub-19 minutes to record a meet-best 46 points.
Newport Harbor (66) also placed all five scoring runners in the top 20 to finish second, while Los Alamitos (74) took home the last automatic CIF berth by finishing third.
In the boys’ race, Norberto Osorio led Fountain Valley to its third straight team title by winning the individual title. Osorio, who transferred to the Barons from Santiago this season, moved into the lead for good coming off the hill in the second mile.
He maintained a comfortable advantage to the finish line, clocking a winning time of 15:17.
“Once we got to the hill, I decided to make my move,” Osorio said. “Coming off the hill, I went hard and was able to take it from there.”
Fountain Valley’s Galyn Nash was second in a time of 15:27, while the Marina duo of Craig Huff (15:30) and Kyle Aube (15:32) placed third and fourth respectively.
The Barons rebounded from a couple of disappointing races in October with a dominant effort in their first November comptetion.
Fountain Valley totaled four runners in the top 10 and had all five scoring runners finish in the top 12 to win the meet with 27 points.
“We saw that our league title streak was on the line and the boys rallied around each other and rose to the pressure,” Barons co-coach J.D. Krawcyzk said. “We really needed this for a confidence booster after three weeks of racing bad.”
Marina (57) and Edison (63) rounded out the top three teams finishers and also earned automatic qualification into the CIF-SS prelims, which are scheduled for Saturday, November 16th at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut.
