Legionnaires win Apollo League boys cross country championship

None of Bonsall High School’s athletic teams had won a team league championship before Nov. 9, when the Apollo League cross country championship meet was held on the Naval Training Center course in San Diego. The meet gave Bonsall the school’s first league championship banner.

Bonsall’s boys not only had the superlative team score but also the league meet’s fastest runner; senior Lance Starks posted a time of 17 minutes, 10 seconds on the 5,000-meter or 3.1-mile course to place first among the 41 Apollo League boys in the race.

“It’s just great having the first – the first ever for our high school,” Bonsall head coach Al Greene said.

Cross country team scores are based on the positions of each school’s first five finishers. A team’s sixth and seventh runners are not scored but can add points to other teams’ scores. Schools are allowed up to 12 runners at the league meet, although only six Bonsall boys competed in the varsity race, and team scores do not reflect the eighth through twelfth finishers for each school nor do the points include positions of runners whose school did not have the minimum five harriers for a team score.

Bonsall’s varsity team had the first, second, seventh, ninth, 11th and 15th positions, and the Legionnaires won the meet with 30 points. The second place school, Gompers Preparatory Academy, accumulated 67 points. Bayfront Charter High School had 77 points, O’Farrell Charter School totaled 81 points and The Cambridge School finished with 96 points.

“I thought we’d be close,” Greene said of competing for the league championship.

Bonsall junior Maximus Collier was second in the race with a time of 17:55. Gompers sophomore Elias Doumerc and O’Farrell junior Cesar Cuevas Jimenez had times of 17:58 for the third and fourth finishes. Bonsall’s third finisher was junior Fulton Elkins, whose time of 18:39 gave him seventh place overall.

The top 10 finishers received all-league first team honors, and junior Austin Alanis also earned a berth on the Apollo League first team by finishing ninth at 18:48. Bonsall’s other two varsity runners were seniors; A.J. Greene had the 11th-place time of 19:04 and William Wallace finished in 19:43 for 15th place.

“It was gratifying to see that we were league champions, especially how hard we worked all season long,” Greene said.

Bonsall’s first league championships were track and field individual championships at the Apollo League meet in May. Greene and Starks were part of the boys 4x400 relay team which won the championship race, and Bonsall’s girls won the 4x100 relay contested earlier in the day to give the Legionnaires their first league individual championship.

Only two Apollo League schools had the minimum five runners in the junior varsity race for a team score, but Bonsall also won the junior varsity league championship. The Legionnaires achieved a team score of 26 points and Health Sciences Academy had 29 points.

Children’s Creative and Performing Arts Academy sophomore Julien Maxwell-Ornelas won the race with a time of 19:02, Bonsall junior Nick Murphy was second at 19:07, Legionnaire sophomore Kenneth Neal had the third-place time of 20:11, junior Calvin Hamilton took fifth place with a 20:34 performance, freshman Scott Trulove was the 13th finisher with a time of 24:01, freshman Greggor Sanchez completed the course in 25:17 for 14th place, and junior Devin Byrne captured 15th place by crossing the finish line 26:10 after the start of the race. The junior varsity race had 22 Apollo League boys.