La Mirada High School

Fast times at Warren Invite

Lady Mats Earn the top spot and set the La Mirada Record for Team Time

The La Mirada Matadores boys and girls teams took to the flat, fast Warren-Stauffer course last Saturday with excellent results. Running by grade level, the Lady Mats were able to field individual winners in the Junior and Senior races, and secure 4th place in the freshman and sophomore races. Most of the varsity boys took the day off to train.

Temperatures were in the mid-70s all day and conditions were perfect for running. Starting the day off, the freshman girl's team was led by Ashley Casanover and Celinda Manzo who finished 4th and 11th respectively. While all the girls earned a PR, Ashley's time of 19:25 is the fastest ever by a freshman from La Mirada on the blazing fast course. In the boy's race, both Nick Meek and Frankie Nogales ran their fastest races of the season.

Senior boys and girls ran next. In the girl's race, Stephanie Felix made a serious attempt at breaking her own course record set in 2005. She was ahead of pace early on, but slowed down as she ran the numerous new turns that were added to the course this year. Ultimately, her time of 17:18 made her the fastest girl of the day. Sarah Jeon was the only other senior in the race and ended up being the fifth scorer for the girls. In the boy's race, Enrique Nava entered new territory with a PR that put him under 20 minutes for the first time in his career.

Melissa Byrd pushed her way to the front of the pack just after the first mile and never looked back in the junior girls race. Her first place finish paced the junior girls to 3rd place in their heat. They were the only Matadore team to place in the top three at the race. Tatiana Cortes secured her spot on the varsity team with a fine race, and Valerie Wong climbed higher up the ladder of success as she earned a PR over 2 minutes faster than her previous best. The junior boys were paced by Mateo Cordova.

After waiting all morning, the sophomore crew took to the field to end the day. Lauren McIntyre, running without Stephanie or Melissa pacing her, was in the front for the first mile before being overtaken by Dani Moreno, last year's overall winner. Although she challenged the leaders the entire course, Lauren completed the 3-mile course in 4th place with a time 18:43, a PR. She was named the La Mirada athlete of the meet. In the boy's race, both Andrew Herrick and Richard Marquez made huge breakthroughs in their racing and entered La Mirada's elite list of top ten sophomores. For his effort, Richard was named the boys athlete of the meet for the Matadores and Andrew was named "Runner of the Week."

When the times were tallied, it was learned that the Lady Mats were winners of the meet with an overall team time of 1:34:31. It was the fifth fastest time recorded at the Warren-Stauffer Invitational and is a new school record for the girls.