Addi Zerrenner and Bryan Fernandez of Dos Pueblos handled the heat and the hills of Arroyo Verde Park to repeat as the individual winners at the second Channel League cross country meet on Thursday.
Zerrenner finished in 19 minutes, 28 seconds and teammate Elaine McClure nabbed sixth in 20:35, helping the Chargers to a second-place team finish behind Ventura.
“This was a big jump for us considering we finished fourth in the last league meet,” DP coach Leslie Wiggins Roth said.
Ventura scored 37 points, Dos Pueblos 49, San Marcos 66, Buena 66 and Santa Barbara 133.
In the boys race, DP (35 points) also finished second to Ventura (29). San Marcos (93) came in third followed by Buena (95) and Santa Barbara (107).
“The score was considerably closer in this meet,” Roth said. “In the first meet, we were nine points away. Today we were just six. It was great to see the boys competing together and racing the best they have in the last few weeks.”
Fernandez ran 16:15 to lead three Chargers under 17 minutes. Max Davis was fourth (16:54) and Ben York fifth (16:57). John Greening had a good race, placing 11th (17:29) and Cole Smith was 12th (17:31).
“Greening is quickly moving up the team ladder,” said Roth. “He was 6th for us at Clovis, and still isn’t nearly at his potential.
“We are slowly closing in on Ventura, and I am really excited to see how we match up against them at our third league meet in a few weeks.”
Santa Barbara’s James Scheuermann came in sixth in 17:00.
Dons coach Olivia Perdices praised the performance of Gustavo Bello, who came in 19th in 17:48.
“He ran four minutes better than a year ago. That’s huge jump from his freshman and sophomore year,” said Perdices.
Joe Logan (14th, 17:36) was San Marcos’ top finisher, followed by Isaac Wright (17th, 17:45) and Eric Salas (18th, 17:46).
San Marcos had three top 10 finishers in the girls race: Rocio Pacheco was fourth (20:02), Caitlyn Kuehn eighth (20:54) and Iulia Roman 10th (21:23).
Kelley Drechsler (19th, 22:32) was Santa Barbara’s top finisher.
Roth said McClure made great strides from the first league meet.
“This was an incredible race for Elaine, not only with a fantastic time, but she finished 13th in the last league meet and certainly contributed to the second-place finish today,” said Roth.
The other DP finishers were Emma Redick (12th, 21:33), Camille Patterson (13th, 21:34), and Cheryl Wilson (17th, 21:59).
“We train all season for the tough hills on this course and it was great to see all that hard work pay off,” said Roth.
