Announcement
ationalThe Matadores varsity teams took a road trip to Fresno the weekend of October 6th to race at Woodward Park, site of the 2007 Cross Country State Championship meet. The Lady Mats were stunned by a mid-week change in plans that resulted in their being dropped from the Sweepstakes race and placed in the Division II varsity race. With Sarah Jeon and Clarissa Negrete taking the week off, the girls were represented by Stephanie Felix, Melissa Byrd, Lauren McIntyre, Ashley Casanover, Celinda Manzo, Tatiana Cortes, and Valerie Wong. Clovis would be Valerie's first race in a varsity uniform and Celinda's second. Mark Gillaspy, Michael Palmer, Andrew Garza, Dennis Ly, Andrew Herrick, Richard Marquez, and Brett Berger represented the boys.
In the girl's race, the Lady Mats had a great start and settled in the lead pack over the first mile. As has been her habit, Stephanie opened up in a controlled manner with a time of 5:37, just a little behind the lead runners who opened in 5:30. Challenged by few runners over the rolling hills on the 2nd mile, Stephanie cruised through mile two in 11:47 before battling her way to first place with a time of 18:16. Close behind, Melissa and Lauren finished in 14th and 17th place respectively over the 5K course.
An uncharacteristically large gap between Lauren and La Mirada's 4th runner, Ashley Casanover, pushed the Matadores out of contention for a top 3 spot. Ashley was followed closely by Celinda, Tatiana, and Valerie. Unfortunately, they fell a few points shy of a 5th place finish with a team time of 1:40:20.
Lined up in the middle of 30 teams, the boys fell to the back of the pack and quickly learned that the dust-filled course at Woodward Park is not the best place to run from behind. Regrouping, they slowly moved up until they found themselves in better position. They finished the race in 19th place with Andrew Garza leading the way for the team.
The good news was this: there was only a 56 second gap between the numbers one and five runner and a 1:10 gap between the first and seventh.
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