Wildcats Make it Happen at Bronco

Saturday September 6th marked the opening race for the Brea-Olinda cross-country 2014 campaign. The Wildcats were off to a great start of the season at the Cal Poly Pomona Bronco Invite by winning both the varsity races and sweeping all three races on the boy’s side. The highlight of the day was junior Austin Tamagno’s over-all victory covering 14:59 for the 3-mile course.

The first race of the day was the girls JV/FS race where the Wildcats sat two of our top scorers. Stepping up in a major way was the vastly improved Jazelle Gonzalez who was our number 1 runner placing 11th in a lifetime best of 21:08; her previous PR of 21:54 was set just two weeks ago. Jazelle’s time remained the 7th fastest time for a BOHS girl by the end of the day. Also of note was the debut of Lin Yi Recinos and a massive 1-minute PR by Kayla Libed. Recinos who has been running around 3 miles a day on the track ran an impressive time of 22:03 while Libed improved her PR to 21:52.

The second place finish of Joe Tobin led the way for the first of 5 team victories of the day for the Wildcats. Tobin challenged late in the race and was ultimately able to hold on a solid second place finish. Joe’s time of 16:04 would be good enough to finish 11th in the varsity race. Finishing second for the Wildcats and third overall was JD Stendhal in 16:51 after a great summer of training. Fun fact: if the boys JV team would have raced in the varsity race they would have placed 3rd.

Brea-Olinda came into this meet with the goal of winning both varsity races and was able to accomplish this by a great effort from this vastly improved group of athletes. Employing a more conservative race strategy the girls moved up nicely throughout the race to edge out Newport Harbor and current CIF-SS D-V #1 Flintridge Prep. Leading the way for the ladies team was junior Carly Halm who finished 5th overall in a time of 18:35. On the varsity squad 3 of the 7 girls ran lifetime best: Jen Frazier 19:22, Meredith Lehman 19:22 and Bri Rios 20:14.  By the end of the day the ladies had 14 runners participate in their first race and 16 returners run lifetime bests.

The preseason CIF-SS DIII #1 BOHS boys team ran a splendid race placing the top 7 in the top 8 reaffirming their spot at the top of the rankings. Led by national record holder, Austin Tamagno, the Brea squad was only disrupted by Tustin High School’s Jesus Pantaleon’s 2nd place finish. Due to individuals being removed from the team score, Pantaleon was the only runner from Tustin, the Wildcat’s secured a rare perfect team score of 15 points, the lowest possible score in cross country.  

The boys Frosh/Soph race was the last of the day and yet another BOHS victory. Led by sophomore Daniel Perez with a second place finish the Wildcats won 5 of the 6 divisions contested. Perez’s time of 16:20 would have placed him 11th in the varsity race.

Congratulations to all Brea-Olinda athletes on a great opening weekend. Next Saturday we will have practice at Yorba Regional Park at 8:00, all athletes are expected to attend. We will return to action at the Woodbridge Invite on Saturday September 20.

Full results can be found here