Three Warrior girls medal at Laguna Hills Invite

Fallbrook High School’s girls cross-country team began its season Sept. 13 at the 31st annual Laguna Hills Cross-Country Invitational meet, and three Warriors received medals for finishing among the top 40 in their races.

Andrea Vela and Natalie Dudley ran together in the Division 2 junior race; Vela placed 11th among the 104 runners with a time of 20:53 on the 3-mile course and Dudley was 12th at 20:54. In the 153-girl Division 2 sophomore race, Ariana Buchholz posted a 21st-place time of 20:59.

“We ran three six seconds apart, which is very impressive,” said Fallbrook head coach Troy Hamlin.

A total of 12 Fallbrook girls participated in the Laguna Hills Cross-Country Invitational. “We did all right,” Hamlin said. “I was impressed with the group we had running.”

The team has 19 girls altogether. Hamlin and the assistant coaches felt that three girls were not ready to run three miles in that day’s temperatures. “It’s a long season. This first meet is to get your feet wet,” Hamlin said.

The three girls who were held out attended the meet. Lea Prebichavski, an exchange student from Austria, warmed up but determined that the weather would not produce a suitable run. The team’s other exchange student is from northern Germany, but the removal of her wisdom teeth rather than the weather kept Johanna Wehming from racing that day. Two veteran Fallbrook runners, Kiera Donoghue and Hannah French, were ill and also did not attend.

The races were run in the morning. “It was relatively warm, but it was not obnoxiously hot,” Hamlin said.

Fallbrook’s only senior, Alexi Eich, ran in the junior race so that the Warriors could leave earlier and so that Eich would not have to run in the mid-day heat. Her time of 24:53 placed 62nd.

In last year’s sophomore race, Vela finished 24th with a time of 24:00 and Dudley was 67th with a time of 23:21.

Buchholz finished 39th in last year’s freshman race and posted a time of 21:50, so her 20:59 this year was a 1:51 improvement. “She’s training hard,” Hamlin said.

Five runners are needed for a team score, and the sophomores were the only Fallbrook team to be scored. The Warriors finished 10th among the 11 schools with full teams, beating Murrieta Valley High School’s sophomores by

24 points.

Team scores are derived by adding the positions of a school’s top five runners; the sixth and seventh runners are not scored but can add points to other teams’ totals. (Additional runners are allowed to compete but do not add points, so Fallbrook’s total of 236 points is not equal to the cumulative positions of the Warriors’ top five runners.)

Evie Sanchez finished 60th in the Division 2 sophomore race with a time of 23:51; Melissa Lopez took 93rd place at 25:34; Emily Larson earned 97th for her 25:51 performance; Nicole Jones had a 113th-place time of 26:47, and Ashley Lopez completed the course in 29:46 for 135th place.

The Warriors’ fastest freshman was Giselle Rivera, who has two older brothers who participated in Fallbrook’s boys cross-country program but who had no previous running experience herself. Rivera placed 51st among the 172 girls in the Division 2 freshman race, and her time of 23:24 was the fourth-fastest among the Warriors. “It was a good showing for Giselle,” Hamlin said.

One of her brothers, Enrique Rivera, is now an assistant coach for the Warrior boys, whose head coach is Marco Arias. Lisa Hasvold is the girls assistant coach, and assistant coach Tim Hauck works with both the boys and the girls.

Fallbrook’s other two freshmen, Katie Cummins and Ally Miner, ran together before Cummins finished 121st at 25:56 and Miner placed 122nd with a time of 26:00.

The team began practicing Aug. 11. Hamlin, who had a kidney transplant July 2 after his brother Ross donated one of his kidneys, was able to return to the team for the first day of practice.

“I was surprised by how well they ran overall, especially at the top level,” Hamlin said of the season’s first meet.

“Laguna Hills is a tough course,” Hamlin said. “I was surprised by how well they held up and how well they did.”

The North County Conference league realignment moves Fallbrook to the Valley League this year along with Mission Hills, Oceanside, Orange Glen, Ramona, and Valley Center.

“We’ll be okay in that league. I’m just glad we’re not in the Avocado West any more,” Hamlin said.

Ramona and Valley Center ran in the Sept. 12 Mustang Invitational in Chula Vista, an evening meet on a 2.2-mile course. Ramona’s varsity girls edged Valley Center by a single point to win the team portion of that race.

“Within our league I think we will do relatively well,” Hamlin said. “We have a chance to compete.”