Warriors medal at San Diego cross country meet

Three members of the Fallbrook High School boys cross country team received medals for being among the top 60 finishers in their race at the Mount Carmel/Movin Shoes Cross Country Invite meet Sept. 17 at the Morley Field course in San Diego.

Joshua Hernandez finished eighth in the freshman race, Chris Larson took 21st place in the senior race, and Dylan Howell, making his 2016 cross country debut, was the senior race's 32nd finisher.

"We had a couple of good performances," said Fallbrook coach Marco Arias.

The boys cross country team has 25 members this year, but only six ran at the Mount Carmel/Movin Shoes Cross Country Invite.

"We were very limited as far as what we did," Arias said. "Soccer got in the way."

Some of the runners missed the meet for soccer games and others were held out to avoid aggravating minor injuries. The team also includes Seventh-Day Adventists, whose religion does not approve of athletic competition between sundown on Friday and sundown on Saturday.

Hernandez and Ian Whadford were Fallbrook's only runners in the freshman race. Hernandez completed the 2.95-mile course in 18:22.

"Really good time, really good day for him," said Arias.

Hernandez made his high school cross-country debut Sept. 10 at the Laguna Hills Cross Country Invitational meet and had a time of 17:48 on the 5,000-meter (3.1-mile) course, but the difference in his times at the Laguna Hills and Morley Field meets are attributed to the San Diego course having steeper hills rather than to a decline in the runner's performance. "That's a tough course," Arias said of Morley Field. "It's a much tougher course, different time of the day."

Hernandez's Laguna Hills race began at 8:00 a.m. and his Morley Field start was at 12:25 p.m., so heat was also a factor in his performance.

Whadford had a time of 20:47, which gave him 90th place.

The only Fallbrook sophomore boy at the Mount Carmel/Movin Shoes Cross Country Invite, Carlos Mejia, finished 102nd in his race with a time of 20:04. The Warriors did not have any entrants in the junior boys race.

Larson had a time of 17:25. Howell, who took the ACT college entrance examination Sept. 10 and missed the Laguna Hills race, had a time of 17:47 at Morley Field. "He loves that course," Arias said.

The other Fallbrook runner in the senior race, Andrew Schlumpberger, finished in 134th place with a time of 20:54.

"I'm extremely proud and pleased," said Arias. "Overall I think our team has come along."