Cross Country Breezes Through Invitational

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JOSHUA THAI Staff Writer

After the Cross Country team’s strong performance at the Jeff Nelson Invitational, the team continued their season by attending the Cool Breeze Invitational, hosted at the Brookside Golf Course on Sept. 7. The team hit the ground running in their first meet, preparing them for their next.

“I felt really good going into the race,” senior Serena Dueñas said. “I felt that the team was well prepared to race. We are coming into the season with great times on the girl varsity side and we have to defend our title since we won last year.”

In the fourth event of the meet, the boys junior varsity large school three mile race, Alhambra High placed 23rd out of 30 teams. Out of 249 people, junior Wesley Chung placed 157th with a time of 19:47.3 and junior Justin Nguyen placed 188th with a time of 20:40.0. Two events later, Alhambra High placed 11th out of 27 teams in the Girls Sophomore portion of the Invitational. Out of 164 people, sophomore Milan Cambon placed 23rd with a time of 20:34.5, recieving a medal for placing in the top 30. Sophomore Sakura Divecchio placed 79th with a time of 22:24.0.

Shortly after, Alhambra High placed 20th out of 27 schools with five runners in the boys sophomore race. Sophomore Ivan Huang placed within the top 100, landing the 94th spot with a time of 18:10.2. The last two events of the meet, the girls varsity and boys varsity race, were eventful for Alhambra High. The varsity boys placed 30th out of 41 schools with seven runners. Senior Bryan Albarran placed 175th out of 297 people with a time of 18:04.1. However, the best performance from the team came from the varsity girls. In their race, they placed seventh out of 39 schools. Out of seven runners, four placed within the top 100: Dueñas, senior Alyssa Romero, junior Paloma Sanchez and junior Daniele Santoyo. Dueñas placed 5th with a time of 18:13.9, Romero placed 17th with a time of 18:54.8, Sanchez placed 32nd with a time of 19:25.9 and Santoyo placed 54th with a time of 20:05.5. Dueñas and Romero both received medals for placing in the top 30.

“Everyone performed really well at the Cool Breeze Invitational,” Dueñas said, “We were all very pleased with our performance because most of us came back with our own new personal records.”

The team will attend their next meet at the Whittier Narrows, Legg Lake on Sept. 26.