Captains' log - Woodbridge

On September 15th the team headed out into Norco to race the Woodbridge invitational at Silverlakes Sports Complex. Woodbridge gives athletes a unique opportunity to test out their top speed in fast races. With literally zero change in elevation, most athletes run their best times by taking advantage of the featureless terrain and the tough competition.
Many of our talented athletes showed the other teams what they got at last weekend's Woodbridge Invitational. Kicking off the invite from Novice, Peyton Garcia passed a few of his competitors and raced his first ever 3 miler, achieving a time of 33:16. Moving on to Freshmen, Benji Garner and Eric Lee gained a impressive and respectable PR of 21:06 and 22:57. Shifting towards the Sophomores, Brandon Kuo pushed his teammates through the race and pulled off an impressive sub-18 three miler achieving a time of 17:56. Jeremy Guerrero and Andrew Kim worked together to abolish the competition behind them, both of whom got 20:42. Evan Gomez, Anthony Motts, and Chris Landreth also came all close together finishing with strong times of 21:14, 22:08, and 23:46. Next up, the Juniors! John Root and Chris Furumizo yet again used each other to achieve an excellent and outstanding times of 18:43 and 19:12. Angel Fuerte was also successful in achieving a time of 20:51. Many of our athletes that raced during the day showed the other schools what they had and we hope for these individuals to further continue getting brilliant PR’s.

The JV team proved to be an absolute unit, standing their ground and showing off how they alone could stand as a respectable Varsity team in the Varsity Gold race. The team placed 10th in a field of many of the top teams in California. The team was led by the mad lad Manny Debarros who obliterated the field and the team's expectations. Dropping about 2.5 minutes, Manny dropped from 18:55 to 16:13; This was arguably one of the greatest improvements by any Brea runner in history. Carlos Perez and Luke Stratton closely followed, achieving 16:19 and 16:26 and brand new PRs.  The team score was finished off by Jack Livingston running a 16:41 and pulling Shane Park through in 16:58. The rest of the Varsity gold team was finished off by Aakash Kadakia and Miguel Andrade who finished in 17:05 and 17:15, closing in on that sub-17 barrier.

At the end of the night came the Varsity Rated race. The varsity team had been waiting for this race to show their potential, and did not disappoint. They placed third as team, and the top five all went under 16 minutes. Shane Gaffikin came in first for Brea and tenth overall, with a PR of 14:54‒ his first time under fifteen minutes. Twenty-six seconds later came Jonathan Manara running a PR of 15:10. Ryan Daedler came next, with a 22 second PR and a time of 15:28. To finish off the top five came Matthew Apahidean with a PR of 15:42 and Jack Hannum with a PR of 15:46. The real hero of the night was Jordan Ostby, running in his first varsity race and shaving an incredible 47 seconds off his best time, taking him from a 17:03 to a 16:16. Andrew Velasco came in seventh for Brea. Battling an injury and a terrible disposition to fall during his races, he still achieved a time of 16:35.