YORBA LINDA – Yorba Linda has risen quickly to the surface of Orange County’s cross country pool in the program’s five-year existence.
The girls team has won two Empire League titles while the boys were among the top three teams for four consecutive years.
This season will be the ultimate test for the accelerating Mustangs. They join the new Century Conference, which will pit the program against some of the top runners in the state.
But it’s a challenge Coach Dave Miller says Yorba Linda is ready for. Both the boys and girls teams are the best the program has seen.
“The fact that we are in a new league, we are in a conference that’s got champion teams from top to bottom – we are coming together at the right time for sure,” Miller said. “The kids are working harder because they know that our competition is going to be a lot stronger. This summer we did some extra things that helped us to become a little bit stronger.”
Perhaps even more exciting is the youth of both teams. Between the 14 varsity runners, only three are seniors.
One of those is Jack Thurston, the clear senior leader on the boys team. Thurston was the fastest Yorba Linda runner as a junior; he finished fourth in Empire League finals (15:41) and 24th in CIF-SS prelims.
“Jack really had a breakthrough year last year with us,” Thurston said. “He was a decent runner, but really developed over the end of track season and into the summer this year and his times have really improved. The improvement has been much greater, earlier in the season, than I could have projected.”
He finished 16th with a time of 15:38 in the White Varsity race at the Woodbridge Classic behind two promising Yorba Linda juniors: Zack Joseph (15:17, sixth place) and Henry Silver (15:28, 12th place).
Thurston – who began running his freshman year at Yorba Linda when he realized he wasn’t good enough to make the school’s soccer team – is well-suited to help lead the Mustang boys in the North Hills League this season. He’s a tireless worker, constantly offers encouragement to younger runners and has a 4.1 GPA in the classroom.
He’s also as selfless as he is talented. His goals for the season don’t center around individual league titles or qualifying for postseason races.
“We need to just keep building up our program as we’ve been doing,” said Thurston, 17. “I think a good team goal that we’ve set is to kind of try and build the freshman class that we have. We really want to build the young talent that we have.”
Two years ago, Rachel Iida was that untapped young talent on the girls side. Now she’s contending for her second straight bid to run at the state meet.
“Rachel’s what I consider to be the catalyst of the team we are now blessed with,” Miller said. “She has the competitive mental toughness you’ll find in very few athletes. When the girls look at her they see someone who gives everything she has not only in practice, but in races.”
Iida grew up playing soccer and – up until this year – played on a club team year-round. It was Miller who convinced Iida to join cross country.
Iida got injured early in her freshman year and was forced to sit out the first half of the season. She took the Empire League by storm during the track and field season, winning both the 800-meter and 1,600-meter races and placing fifth at CIF-SS prelims in the 1,600.
As a sophomore she qualified for the CIF State Cross Country Championships with her seventh-place finish (18:03) at the CIF-SS finals, but was plagued by a hip-flexor injury during track season. This year the 4.2 GPA student quit soccer to put less stress on her body and focus on cross country and school.
“I really want to get to states again and I’d like to improve my time there,” Iida, 16, said. “And I want to go to states as a team rather than an individual. I think our team is a lot stronger.”
She’s a “college-level runner,” Miller said, and has had preliminary interest letters begin to filter in from college coaches.
Miller’s quick to credit both Iida and Thurston for helping push the Mustangs’ program forward the past few years. He sees no reason why 2014 should be any different with those two leading the way.
“The thing that I admire most about those two, the biggest thing, is that they never ever complain, they never question,” Miller said. “Even when they have a bad practice or bad race, they never make an excuse for what happened that day. They go out and fix it.”
Yorba Linda’s productive summer workout schedule is paying dividends. The entire girls team is under 19 minutes – several girls shaved more than a minute off their 2013 times – and the boys now have four runners running sub-16 minute races.
The Mustangs won’t have an easy time in the new Century Conference this season; the boys will compete in the North Hills League and the girls in Crestview League. But that doesn’t dim the bright future ahead.
“I just really want to see the team after me just kind of take its roots and become an even more talented one than we already have this year,” said Thurston. “Because the class behind me is where I feel all the real talent is.”
Contact the writer: 714-704-3796 or mhanlon@ocregister.com
