Cross Country Teams Dominate SCIAC Multi-Duals

The men's and women's cross country teams showed why they are both ranked in the top 10 nationally as they each dominated the SCIAC Multi-Dual meet at La Mirada Park on Friday afternoon.  The tenth-ranked Stags finished 2-3-4-5-9-12-13 overall while the fourth-ranked Athenas were 3-4-5-7-8-9-10.  Both teams would have won a dual meet against the rest of the SCIAC combined, the men 23-32 and the women 27-32.

The Stags, the top ranked team in the West Region, were able to thwart any chance of an upset win by Pomona-Pitzer, 28th nationally and second in the West, by placing four runners in front of the Hens' strong top three.  Brian Sutter, Zorg Loustalet, Rafer Dannenhauer and Bennett Naden ran as a pack for most of the race and finished second through fifth with just under eight seconds separating them.  Justin Jones, CMS' fifth and final scorer, punctuated the win by outkicking P-P's fourth runner for ninth place.  Sam Pitcavage and Colin Briskman worked together for most of the race and were able to finish in front of third place La Verne's second runner in 12th and 13th.  CMS had nine runners in the top 20 and 15 in the top 30.  15 of the 17 Stags who competed at this meet last year ran faster yesterday including 12 who improved by over a minute.  One of the top performances was turned in by senior Brian Conroy who improved over two and half minutes and 44 places from last year as he finished 26th in 27:26.

The Athenas, also the top ranked team in the West Region, were perhaps more impressive than the men as they were competing against several national caliber individuals.  The team was led, as they have been all year, by the duo of Bridget Blum and Sara Mostatabi.  The pair ran 21:23 and 21:29 to finish third and fourth, but their times would have run this race all six previous times the course has been used.  Allison Barnwell finished a strong fifth and then a pack of five Athenas, Kate Crawford, Marnie Hogue, Laura Sauvage, Lisa Beem and Aubrey Zimmerling, finished consecutively from seventh to 11th in a seven second span.  CMS had 10 of the top 20 and 16 of the top 31 and all 21 Athena finishers would have been in the top seven on seven of the eight other teams.  All 12 Athenas who competed at this meet last year ran faster yesterday including eight who improved by over a minute.  The top CMS performance of the day, men or women, was turned in by junior Becca Schell.  She ran 3:20 faster than she did on this course last year and improved 51 places as she finished 24th in 23:09.  Seven women set personal bests in the race including Crawford (22:17), Beem (22:19), Katie Girvan (22:53), Schell, Meg O'Keefe (23:31), Kaylee Anderson (23:51) and Rae Brookshire (24:00).

Both teams will race again on October 27 at the SCIAC Championships.  The race will be at Prado Regional Park in Chino.  The men will race at 8:30 with the women following at 9:15.

Dual Meet Records with CMS scores against each opponent