Announcement
2006 Suburban League Finals -- November 1, 2006
Boys moving up the ladder of success; Girls keep their streak alive with #6
A last minute change in location from Carbon Canyon Regional Park forced the Suburban League teams to compete at La Mirada Regional Park for the annual league finals meet. Learning the course on the day of the race seemed to make little difference to the many athletes who earned new PRs.
As usual, the JV girls race was the first of the day. A short-handed La Mirada JV girls team was unable to overcome the recent spate of illnesses to key athletes. Girls who would normally race with the JV team were moved up to race with the varsity team. A strong 1-2 finish by Tatiana Cortes and Erica Campos on the 3.05 mile course put the Lady Mats in contention for the top spot, was not enough to lift the girls into first place. They finished the 2006 season in 2nd place. Krystal Gomez, Bianca Ceballos, Cedes Vo, Valerie Wong and Daisey Terriquez rounded out the JV team.
Greg Luna was the first Matadore to cross the finish line for the JV boys. He was closely followed by Mateo Cordova. For their efforts, both Greg and Mateo have earned a trip to CIF with the varsity team. In recent years the JV team has not finished higher than 4th place in league. This year they were able to hold on to 3rd place.
In the Varsity girls race, Stephanie Felix opened the gap over the rest of the pack by the first mile and never looked back. Her teammate, Melissa Byrd paced herself well and moved into the 2nd spot just before the end of the 2nd mile. With the 1-2 tandem in place for the Lady Mats the rest of the varsity team did what they needed to ensure their 6th consecutive league title and 72nd consecutive Suburban League victory. Unlike the previous league races, this one started out relatively close. At the end of mile one, the Lady Mats were slightly ahead of the field with 30 points. This changed at mile 2 when senior Jenna Pasillas moved from the 14th spot into the 12th spot and lowered the team score to 28. By the end of the race, Karina Gonzalez and Sarah Jeon found themselves in the 5th and 6th spots to give the team four All-League athletes and a total team score of 25 points. Caitlin Winn and Andrea Smith ran superb races; Caitlin finished in the 14th spot for the team in her first varsity race.
Andrew Bueno continued his recent impressive surge as he narrowly missed a 3rd place finish in the boys varsity race. Michael Palmer, Andrew Garza and Dennis Ly narrowly missed the top 10 but their 11, 12, 13 finish provided the Matadores with a nice 3-pack that propelled the team into 2nd place for the 2006 season. Mark Gillaspy,Vincent Ha and Jason Kim rounded out the scoring for the Matadores. The next step for the varsity runners is the Division II CIF-SS championship race to be held at Mt. SAC on Saturday, November 11.