By Amy Candiotty
The Los Alamitos High School Cross Country Team raced their fifth race of the season at the Orange County Cross County Championships on Oct. 14 at Oak Canyon Park in Irvine. The race is limited to CIF southern section high schools located in Orange County, California. The significance of this race is to establish a team county champion from the 25 teams racing within the area. The Griffin JV girls team became the OC Champions, winning their division. The Champions for the varsity girls team was JSerra Catholic while Dana Hills won the varsity boys race.
The Griffin girls all ran strong races. The freshman girls came in third, they were led by Maddie Heenan (20:55), Bella Castellon (20:56), and Sydney Boik (21:52). The sophomore girls placed second as a team. Sophomore Phoebe Grimshaw (20:05) won the race for the school’s division followed by Serena Peterson (21:47), and Roma Kubis (22:26). The JV girls won their race, it was led by Alia Turcios (21:16), Reanne Robinson (21:22), and Milly Verdugo (21:38). The varsity girls team placed eight. Junior Stevie Holguin (18:15) led the Griffins, followed by Olivia Bettinger (18:17) and Chelsea Estrada (18:43).
The Griffin boy’s freshman team came in sixth place led by Sully Pareti (17:14), Jaden Cooks (18:13), and Jonathan Vazquez (18:26). The sophomore boys placed seventh led by Dean Lehigh (17:44), Charley Nelson (17:51), and Dane Stilinovich (18:07). The JV boys placed seventh, Gavin Ordinario (17:39) was the first Griffin to come in followed by Ethan Mayer (18:03), and Aidan Hamilton (18:08). Senior Lon Monk (15:38) ran an impressive race obtaining a PR and led the Griffin boy’s varsity team, followed by Matthew Mayhue (16:15), and Charles Villegas (16:35).
The Griffins’ next big race is League Finals in two weeks. At League Finals, two leagues, the Surf League and the Wave League will race, and two teams will advance from each league to compete at Mt. Sac for CIF-SS prelims. Head Coach Celestin said, “The Orange County Championships were a great opportunity for our six teams to compete against our league competition before League Finals in two weeks. The great performance by our athletes today shows their training and dedication are paying off and they will be ready for a fast finish to their season.”
The Griffns run League Finals at Central Park in Huntington Beach on Oct. 28.
