Warrior boys 14th at CIF cross-country meet

After finishing last among the six Avocado West League teams in each of the two league cluster meets as well as at the league meet Nov. 16 at Kit Carson Park, Fallbrook High School’s boys cross-country team finished ahead of six other full Division I teams at the CIF San Diego Section meet.

The Warriors finished 14th among the 20 Division I schools at the CIF meet Nov. 23 at Morley Field in San Diego. “We ran pretty well,” said Fallbrook head coach Marco Arias.

Fallbrook’s highest finisher in the CIF race was sophomore Sam Comerford, who placed 55th among the 141 Division I runners with a time of 17:40 on the 5,000-meter (3.1-mile) course. “Sam had probably one of his better races,” Arias said.

The team scores were derived by adding the positions of a school’s top five finishers. A school’s sixth and seventh finisher are not scored but can add points to opponents. Each school was allowed up to seven runners at the CIF meet, although Arias only had six runners at Morley Field.

Senior Rene Hernandez finished 63rd at 17:52. Junior Elijah Roque placed 78th after completing the course in 18:05. Senior Alex Contreras received 116th place for his 18:58 performance.

Fallbrook’s other two runners at the CIF meet were both freshmen. Chris Larson raced for 19:08 and took 121st place. Alec Billmeier was the 139th finisher 21:14 after the race began.

“I think Chris is going to be one of our future up and coming runners,” Arias said.

At the Southern California Invitational meet Oct. 19 on Guajome Park’s 5,000-meter course, Larson and Hernandez both received medals for being among the top 10 finishers in their race. Larson finished sixth in the 4-5 race at 17:04.94 while Hernandez was 10th in the 1-3 race with a time of 16:30.17.

Billmeier medaled at the Oct. 25 Jaguar Invitational meet at Kit Carson Park, which gave medals to the top 40 finishers in each race. His 18:58 performance on the 3.0-mile course placed him 30th among the junior varsity race’s 247 runners. Two Warriors medaled in the large-school varsity race; Hernandez raced for 16:43 to earn 12th place and Roque earned 36th place with a time of 17:09.

Fallbrook’s nine boys who ran at the Avocado West League meet Nov. 16 consisted of two seniors, two juniors, two sophomores, and two freshmen. “The freshmen had a pretty good showing,” Arias said.

Freshman Brian Calixto, sophomore Wade Leehey, and junior Roberto Valencia participated in the league meet but not the CIF meet.

Sophomore Juan Lopez missed both the league race and the CIF competition. “I think he’ll rebound next year,” Arias said of Lopez.

“Within the next two years I think we’re going to make strides,” Arias said.