Warrior girls fourth in first league cross country cluster

Last year Fallbrook High School's girls cross country team won both league cluster meets and the league championship meet. This year the Warriors began Valley League competition with a fourth-place showing Sept. 30 on the Guajome Park course.

"We'll improve," said Fallbrook head coach Tim Hauck. "It just takes one or two people moving up a little bit."

The positions of a school's first five finishers are added to obtain the team score. A team's sixth and seventh runners are not scored but can add points to opponents' scores. Ramona won the meet with a score of 38 points, Valley Center placed second with 65 points, San Pasqual had the third-place total of 70 points, the finishes of the Fallbrook runners gave the Warriors 79 points, and Escondido accumulated 88 points.

"The girls ran well," said Hauck.

Last year five Fallbrook runners were among the top nine at the league meet.

"We were more in Ramona's situation last year in terms of depth of talent," said Hauck.

Three of Fallbrook's top seven runners in 2015 were seniors. The only current Ramona senior among the top seven Bulldogs finishers Sept. 30 was Gwendalyn Gibson, who won all three league races last year and won all four of her races this year before finishing first at the league cluster.

Three of Ramona's top seven finishers Sept. 30 were freshmen; three of Fallbrook's seven fastest runners at the 2015 league meet were freshmen, including Hannah Diverde, who has opted to concentrate on soccer this year.

Due to a family commitment, the Warriors were without junior Desiree Jones for the Sept. 30 race. Based on Jones' times during Fallbrook's three previous meets, Hauck expects her to be the Warriors' third or fourth runner in subsequent league races.

The Valley League teams have an Oct. 28 league cluster meet at Kit Carson Park and the league championship meet will take place Nov. 12 at Guajome Park. Hauck sees the league battle as being for second place.

"I don't know that we can get close to Ramona," said Hauck.

Gibson was one of three Ramona runners to finish among the top five Sept. 30, and seven Bulldogs were among the top 20. The sixth finisher was Fallbrook junior Gisselle Rivera, whose time on the 3.0-mile course was 20:55.

"Gisselle Rivera had a great race," said Hauck.

One of last year's varsity freshmen who is now a Fallbrook sophomore is Audrey Petersen, who had the eighth-place time of 21:12.

"Audrey Petersen ran great," said Hauck. "I'm real pleased with how they (Rivera and Petersen) are running. They both had good races."

The other 2015 varsity freshman and current sophomore still running for Fallbrook, Jessica Wilbert, took 17th place with a time of 22:27.

The league meets also include a junior varsity championship, and last year Ramona had six of the first nine finishers. Fallbrook's best showing at the JV race was by Katie Cummins, who finished seventh. Cummins made this year's varsity as a sophomore and finished 22nd at the league cluster with a time of 23:01.

The only freshman to run the varsity race for Fallbrook, Riley Barrios, posted a time of 23:50, which was worth 28th place. The 32nd-place time of junior Molly Cabello was 24:37.

Katie Hutzler was Fallbrook's first runner across the finish line in the junior varsity race; her time of 19:41 on the 2.4-mile course gave her 13th place.

"The girls had a great attitude," said Hauck. "They're training really well. We're real happy."