Great Oak, Palos Verdes and St. Margaret’s all produce title sweeps in their respective divisions, freshmen Coles and Quintero secure individual championships in section finals debuts

By Landon Negri for DyeStat

Oak Park senior Sarah Shulze has always run with a purpose. So has Newbury Park junior Nico Young.

But on a dusty Saturday morning in the Inland Empire, miles away from where fire rampaged and threatened their communities, there was just much more to their competition.

It was no accident, then, that two of the most impressive performances at the CIF-Southern Section finals came from athletes and teams affected by the Woolsey Fire, which, as of Saturday, destroyed 1,008 structures in western Los Angeles and Eastern Ventura counties.

RESULTS | INTERVIEWS | BOYS PHOTOS | GIRLS PHOTOS

It was triumphant, then, that Young set a new 3-mile course record and led Newbury Park to its first Division 2 championship at the Riverside City Cross Country Course. About two hours later, Shulze, a runner-up last year in this race to teammate Sylvia Cruz-Albrecht, routed the Division 3 field to win her own individual title.

Oak Park didn’t advance as a team to race Nov. 24 at the CIF-State Championships at Fresno’s Woodward Park. The Eagles finished ninth; the top seven teams and five individuals not on qualifying teams in each race advanced.

That didn’t take away from the day, and it didn’t take away from Shulze, who won by 25 seconds in her race, clocking 17 minutes, 15.9 seconds.

“I’m a pretty aggressive runner, and I wanted to take the lead early on,” she said. “I did and I was not going to let go of it.”

She led big and led early, and never relinquished the advantage.

“My entire team ran with emotion,” Shulze said. “It was just nuts. We wanted to come out here because this race was much more bigger than just our team. It was for our community.”

Shulze ran with the words “805 Strong” written on her right leg, an ode to her area code. Shulze and all of her teammates were evacuated during last week’s fires, which came less than 24 hours after a mass shooting at a country bar in nearby Thousand Oaks.

“It was just insanity,” she said. “The day before CIF (prelims), we woke up to the news of a mass shooting just about, I think it’s roughly 12 miles from our high school, and later that night, we were all pretty much evacuated out of town.

“Our town has hurt pretty bad by it,” she added, referring to the fire. “We lost our home course (Oak Canyon Park). I know many, many people that have lost homes.”

The story was much the same in nearby Newbury Park. Last week, in the section prelims race at Riverside, it was a struggle.

Coach Sean Brosnan said he even had to leave Riverside to go home and rescue pets, and then return for the races.

Young stood out, though, in an ultra-competitive Division 2 race that included the Panthers, Claremont, Loyola and El Toro.

Young surged in the race’s second half, winning in 14:24.2, breaking the course record of 14:25.1 set Oct. 13 by Rubidoux’s Kevin Ramos and capturing Newbury Park’s first individual championship since 1991.

“Today, we were just really happy to just focus on our race,” Young said.

Winning its first boys title, Newbury Park got three runners in the top 10 – junior Jace Aschbrenner was fourth in 14:42.8 and senior Ethan Ronk was eighth in 14:57 – and won with 51 points. Defending-champion Claremont tallied 104, third-place Loyola had 111.

Brosnan guided his team through the recent events. Together with the team parents, the Panthers practiced away from their community.

“They got the work in,” Brosnan said, and Saturday’s standout performance was no surprise.

“I think half of our team wasn’t in our houses,” said Brosnan, whose runners weren’t able to practice across the street from their high school until this past Wednesday. “It made it real tough. It made it rough for us, and I just said, ‘Guys, you’ve got to shine through. You know you can do this. We’ve been working for this since June.’

“Regardless of what happened last week, these guys just got ready for this.”

Saturday featured many of the usual suspects winning and earning berths into California’s state meet. Great Oak again swept Division 1 titles, with junior Tori Gaitan leading the girls to a seventh consecutive crown by winning in 16:42.2. The boys won their fourth straight crown.

Great Oak senior Tyler Tickner recovered from a fall on a restart to place second in 14:42.6. The win went to Long Beach Poly senior William Frankenfeld, who held Tickner off in 14:35.8.

Frankenfeld became Long Beach Poly’s first section champion since 2000. Caught up in traffic last year, he placed 13th and was disappointed in his finish.

“I was going to make sure to have a real strong kick this time,” Frankenfeld said.

Claremont’s girls won easily in Division 2 with 69 points to runner-up Mission Viejo’s 114 for its third straight title. That didn’t stun as much as freshman Maddie Coles, who bursted in the final 800 meters to win in 16:54.2, perhaps giving the Wolfpack a much-needed frontrunner going into the rest of the postseason.

How did she find that extra gear late? The one that allowed her to shake off J.W. North sophomore Makayla Browne and Ventura junior Madeleine Locher for the win?

“It was definitely something that you really have to push yourself,” Coles said. “Because you know there’s somebody right next to you. But this was something I’ve really been wanting.”

Ramos eased to his win in Division 3, understanding that he didn’t need to go all out. He still won in 14:51, with the state meet looming next week and a much-anticipated showdown with Redwood Larkspur senior Liam Anderson.

He also understood that Saturday marked his final race as a high schooler in his hometown of Riverside.

“Honestly, it’s hitting me,” he said. “I couldn’t be any more grateful to have run here.”

Division 4 was not so laid back. Laguna Beach senior Ryan Smithers dueled with JSerra’s Peter Herold and Anthony Grover and finished strong to prevail, winning in 14:46.1.

“I was just going for Peter and not even thinking I would get Anthony,” Smithers said. “I just saw it with 1,000 meters (left). I saw myself gaining on Anthony and I never would’ve thought I would’ve beaten him.”

He also led Laguna Beach to a big team win with 39 points, highlighted by six of its runners in the top 13. JSerra was second with 131 points.

“I couldn’t ask for a better team,” Smithers said.

Of all triumphs Saturday, one that should be noted was in Division 1. Yes. Great Oak won, and, as expected, Southwestern League rival Vista Murrieta, led by freshman Devyn Candaele, was second.

Walnut senior Chloe Arriaga ran as the runner-up to Gaitan in Division 1 in 16:52.7, and twin sister Emma Arriaga was eighth in 17:05.5. The two have been to the state meet before, but have never taken their team with them.

That changed this year, as they led Walnut to its first state-meet team berth with a sixth-place finish.

Asked if there was a better way to cap her senior year, Arriaga said, “Winning state would be cool. But, yeah, definitely taking my team to state is the highlight. That was what I wanted to do. No Walnut girls team has ever done that. We were the first to do it.”

Following five consecutive Division 5 girls titles by Flintridge Prep, St. Margaret’s finally prevailed against the Rebels by a 78-89 margin. Village Christian sophomore Mia Barnett repeated as individual champion, clocking 17:55.1.

St. Margaret’s swept both team championships, with the Tartans also knocking off Flintridge Prep in the Division 5 boys final with a 65-111 triumph. Jackson Adelman led the Tartans by securing the individual crown in 15:31.3.

Palos Verdes also produced a sweep of the Division 3 championships, with the boys battle resulting in the narrowest margin of victory for the entire meet, as the Sea Kings edged three-time champion West Torrance by an 82-83 margin.

Palos Verdes had much more breathing room in the girls race with an 84-131 victory over Laguna Hills, atoning for a 28-point setback at last year’s finals.

Foothill Tech repeated as Division 4 girls champion with a 65-161 victory over Harvard-Westlake, which crowned its first individual winner since Cami Chapus in 2011 with freshman Daniela Quintero taking the title in 17:12.8.