Warrior girls sweep Valley League cross-country cluster meets

The Valley League cross-country championship will be decided on a weighted formula in which the first league cluster meet accounts for 25 percent, the second league cluster meet provides 25 percent of the weighting, and the league championship meet which will take place Nov. 14 at Kit Carson Park in Escondido determines the other 50 percent.

A Valley League championship for Fallbrook's girls will require the Warriors to place ahead of Mission Vista and the other Valley League schools at the league finals, but Fallbrook swept the first-place positions at the two league cluster meets. The Warriors, who won the Oct. 2 league cluster at Kit Carson Park, repeated their first-place showing during the Oct. 29 league cluster on the Guajome Park course.

"We are at least 50 percent of a league champion. We want to do better than that," said Fallbrook head coach Troy Hamlin. "We're really aiming for a good league meet."

Mission Vista finished second in both league cluster meets, but the Timberwolves finished ahead of the Warriors at the Oct. 23 Kit Carson Invite meet which was run on the Kit Carson Park course. "It's been a little bit of a rivalry," Hamlin said.

On the girls side, Fallbrook and Mission Vista have battled for the top two league positions while Ramona and Valley Center have fought each other for third and fourth. The Valley Center and Ramona boys have been the dominant Valley League teams while Fallbrook and Mission Vista are contending for third and fourth in the boys standings.

The Fallbrook and Mission Vista girls rivalry also involves the Buchholz sisters. Ariana Buchholz ran for Fallbrook in 2013 and 2014, but this year she is a Mission Vista junior while Hailey Buchholz entered Mission Vista as a freshman.

Cross-country team scores are determined by adding the positions of a team's first five finishers; a school's sixth and seventh finishers are not scored but can add points to other teams' totals. Fallbrook had 26 points in the Oct. 2 meet with Mission Vista accumulating 58 points. The Oct. 29 scores included 32 points for Fallbrook and 41 points for Mission Vista. "This one was a little bit closer," Hamlin said.

"Mission Vista has improved," Hamlin said. "They are a good challenge for our group of girls."

Ramona placed third at the Oct. 29 league cluster with 73 points and Valley Center had 82 points. In the Oct. 2 meet, Valley Center edged Ramona for third by two points. Oceanside did not have the minimum five runners for a team score Oct. 2 but fielded a full team Oct. 29 and had 150 points. Orange Glen did not have five runners for either meet.

Five of Fallbrook's runners placed in the top 12 and the seventh Fallbrook finisher was 19th overall. "It was a successful meet," Hamlin said.

That was a contrast from the Kit Carson Invite, where the Warriors finished fourth in their division. Point Loma won that division with 34 points, Del Norte accumulated 42 points, Mission Vista placed third with 75 points, Fallbrook had 121 points, and Ramona was fifth with 152 points.

"We did not do as well as we did in cluster number one," Hamlin said.

The Kit Carson Invite had two divisions based not on school enrollment or competitiveness but on the teams' preference for an earlier or later race. Fallbrook chose the earlier race, and when senior Andrea Vela was selected for Fallbrook's homecoming court she had to stay at school for the photographs that afternoon and missed the meet. Fallbrook freshman Hannah Diverde, who was second after the first mile of the first league cluster meet, dropped out of the Kit Carson Invite race due to a hip injury.

The Kit Carson Invite course was 2.79 miles. The top Fallbrook finisher was senior Natalie Dudley, whose time of 19:28 gave her 12th place in that race. Fallbrook freshman Audrey Petersen finished 16th with a time of 19:44. A 20:07 performance gave sophomore Giselle Rivera 27th place. Jessica Wilbert took 33rd place after the freshman completed the course in 20:24. The 40th-place finish for senior Hannah French included a time of 20:54.

"We really wanted to step up for Kit Carson, but it just didn't happen," Hamlin said. "We're still a really good team."

Vela and Diverde contributed to a better finish at the Oct. 29 league cluster, which utilized a 5,000-meter (3.1-mile) course. Ramona junior Gwendalyn Gibson won the race with a time of 19:44. "Gwendalyn Gibson of Ramona is pretty much the class of the league," Hamlin said. "She's one of the best runners in the section."

Vela had the second-place time of 20:13. "She started off way back and then came on strong at the end," Hamlin said.

"This was her best race," Hamlin said of Vela, who finished third in the first league cluster. "Very strong effort for her. I was very proud that she came back strong."

Diverde completed the course in 20:16 for third place. "She came back strong to run a very strong race," Hamlin said.

Emma Ferrell, Hailey Buchholz, and Ariana Buchholz gave Mission Vista runners the fourth through sixth positions. Ariana Buchholz had a time of 20:25 to edge out Petersen, who was seventh at 20:26.

Dudley, who finished second behind Gibson in the first league cluster, placed eighth at the Oct. 29 meet with a time of 20:32. "She was very disappointed. She felt like she should have run better," Hamlin said.

Mission Vista's fourth finisher, Annie Mitchell, placed ninth, and after Valley Center runners Ashley DeCremer and Janet Gutierrez crossed the finish line, Wilbert became the 12th finisher 21:04 after the race began. Wilbert's time gave Fallbrook a 51-second split between the Warriors' first and fifth runners. "That's pretty impressive," Hamlin said.

Rivera's 14th-place time of 21:15 translated into a 62-second split for Fallbrook's first six finishers. That also allowed her to add a point to the fifth Mission Vista finisher, Sammy Martinez, who was 17th overall.

"Our placing number one and two ahead of their one and two also had a huge effect," Hamlin said.

French finished 19th overall with a time of 21:40.

"It's been a huge season, a wonderful season," Hamlin said. "The group has just been amazing."

Two Fallbrook girls finished among the top 10 in the junior varsity race: junior Emily Larson was eighth at 25:42 and freshman Katie Hutzler placed ninth with a time of 25:55. The Warriors placed third among the three full JV teams.