Six Warrior girls medal at Dana Hills Invitational

The Dana Hills Invitational meet was the third meet of the season for the Fallbrook High School cross-country team, and for the third time in 2011 six Warrior girls received medals.

The Dana Hills meet gave medals to runners who finished among the top 40 in their race. Seniors Nicole Bell and Shara Leehey, juniors Ciera Villegas and Alexis Lopez, and sophomores Rosanne Lopez and Haley McCaffrey earned medals for their performances.

“We had a pretty good day at Dana Hills,” said Fallbrook head coach Troy Hamlin.

As was the case with Fallbrook’s two previous meets, the Dana Hills Invitational had grade-level races and the Warriors could not fully engage in pack running. Fallbrook’s top four times were within 14 seconds of each other. “A 14-second one through four is great,” Hamlin said. “I really like the way the team is progressing.”

Team scores in a cross-country race are obtained by adding the positions of a team’s top five runners. A team’s sixth and seventh runners are not scored but can add positions to opposing runners. Hamlin noted the need to improve the times of his fifth through seventh runners, as the Warriors’ fifth-fastest time of the day was 58 seconds behind Bell’s top time (the sixth-fastest time was only 59 seconds slower than Bell’s although the seventh-place time trailed Bell’s performance by 2:17). “We’ve got to close that gap,” Hamlin said.

Bell’s time of 18:51 on the 3.0-mile course placed 15th and was the fastest time by a Fallbrook girl at the Dana Hills Invitational since Noelle Garcia posted a time of 17:39 in 2008. Bell’s time was 20 seconds faster than her clocking in last year’s junior race. “Solid impressive performance all the way through,” Hamlin said. (Bell ran the course in 20:01 as a sophomore before reducing her 2010 time to 19:11.)

Leehey finished 19th in the senior race with a time of 19:03. “She was basically running with Nicole and off of Nicole,” Hamlin said.

The senior race had 114 girls, including five from Fallbrook, and approximately 10 positions separated Bell and Leehey after the first mile. Approximately eight runners were between the first two Fallbrook finishers after two miles before Leehey closed the gap. “It was a very steady, solid performance for Shara,” Hamlin said.

Leehey’s time was a course personal record by 1:08. “To run that kind of a mark at Dana Hills is just huge for her, and I couldn’t be more proud of her,” Hamlin said.

Seven Warrior girls were among the 161 runners in the junior race. Villegas placed 15th at 19:05. “She got out hard, established position, and just held on to it,” Hamlin said.

Alexis Lopez had a time of 19:49 to take 37th place in the race and post the sixth-fastest Fallbrook time. Although Shavonne Donoghue finished 89th and did not medal, her time of 21:39 was a course personal record by 3:00. Diana Hernandez, who is in her first year as a cross-country runner, finished 105th after completing the course in 22:12. Selina Eich took 106th place with a time of 22:15, which was a 1:15 course personal record. Danica Hooper earned 109th place with a 22:22 performance, and Rachel Jones had a time of 22:38 to secure 116th place.

Rosanne Lopez ran track but not cross-country as a freshman, and in her first Dana Hills race she had a time of 18:56 to place 13th among the sophomore girls. “She really had a breakthrough day,” Hamlin said.

McCaffrey’s time of 19:50 took 37th place and was a 2:40 improvement over her time in the 2010 freshman race.

Hannah Velasquez had Fallbrook’s seventh fastest time at 21:08, which placed 90th among the 229 girls in the sophomore race. Angela DiMercurio set a 55-second course personal record with a 144th-place time of 22:32. Rachel Bell was the fifth of seven Fallbrook sophomores to cross the finish line, doing so 22:43 after the starting gun to take 152nd place, while Sarah Girgis’ time of 22:48 was worth 155th place.

Emma Workman was Fallbrook’s fastest freshman; her time of 21:09 placed 61st among the 231 girls in her race. Kiera Donoghue lost a shoe and first lost time going back to retrieve it before taking additional time to put the shoe back on her foot, but she still finished with a 74th-place time of 21:25. Tori Riddle earned 150th place with a time of 23:29 while Alexi Eich’s time of 23:31 gave her 153rd place.

To comment on this story online, visit http://www.thevillagenews.com.