Corcoran carries momentum into Laguna Hills Invitational

LAGUNA HILLS - After a strong track and field season last spring, Villa Park junior Garrett Corcoran’s season-opening effort looks to be the first steps into continuing that momentum into the fall.

Corcoran grabbed the lead early and held off the field to win the Division 2 junior race at the 29th annual Laguna Hills Invitational Saturday at Laguna Hills High.

His race-winning time of 15:20 was the fastest among all junior runners at the invitational and was the third best individual time of the meet overall.        

“I wanted to go sub-15:10, but my pacing was off,” Corcoran said. “I felt really good until the last hill. I really started hurting, but I just kept going.”

Corcoran advanced to the CIF-SS Masters Meet in the 1,600 during track and field season, coming within a hundredth of a second of earning a trip to the CIF State Track and Field Championships.

“As the season progresses, I’m looking to add more speed workouts to help out with my kick,” Corcoran said.  “Running hard during my workouts will get me to where I want to be.

The best finish of the meet was produced by Arcadia’s Mitchell Pratt and El Toro’s Juan Gonzalez in the Division 1 senior boys’ race. Gonzalez led for most of the race, but was caught and passed by Pratt. Gonzalez found one final burst down the final straightway, but Pratt (15:09) managed to hold off Gonzalez (15:10).

Those were the top two individual times of the meet.

“In the final 200 meters, I felt comfortable that I could catch him, but it wasn’t enough,” Gonzalez said.

Two other county runners finished in the top 10 amongst all runners in the meet. Jackson Marshall of Woodbridge (15:31) finished third in the Division 2 juniors race, while Canyon’s Austin Goins (15:34) took home first place honors in the Division 2 senior race.

Those times were the sixth and seventh fastest of the day respectively.

Among the county runners that finished among the top-20 individually were the Santa Ana Valley duo of Luis Avalos (15:48) and Pedro Antunez (15:50), the Dana Hills tandem of Gavin Deim (15:53) and Jake Ogden (15:58), and Santa Margarita’s Jason Engel (16:00).

Ogden’s performance established a new freshman meet record, eclipsing the previous time of 15:59 set by former Woodbridge star Michael Haddon in 2000.