Cate School’s cross country teams barely missed out for qualifying for next week’s CIF Cross Country Finals at Saturday’s Prelims Meet at Mt. SAC.
The Rams’ boys team ran a strong race – the best of the season according to coach Karl Weis – but came up agonizingly short. The Rams were 16 seconds away from qualifying.
Weis pointed out that the boys total team time, 1:32:15, was the fastest Cate time at Mt SAC in 6 years and the 7th fastest team race in 23 years.
Juniors Andrew Sinclair and Andrew Robbins recorded top-25 individual races. Sinclair’s time of 17:06 was good for 13th place. Senior captain Jesse Gavin finished his Cate career with his fastest time at Mt SAC, 51st place in 19:12.
Freshman Charlotte Monke highlighted the day for Cate’s girls team. Although the group finished 9th in its heat and 18th overall, Monke advanced to the CIF Finals Meet individually.
Monke registered the fastest time for a Cate girls runner at the Mt. SAC course in school history. Her time of 19:37 put her in 7th place overall.
Both Cate teams were competing in Division 5.
Weis offered some final comments on his 2012 teams:
“To use a time-honored sports cliché, it was a building year for both harriers’ teams who had to cope with losing a number of important seniors and various injuries to key runners. But both teams finished on a high note, with underclassmen finally learning to run and compete in the last three meets. Next years’ teams will return a core of talented, seasoned runners. The future for Cate cross country is bright.”
