Kids & Family
AHS Cross Country Runners Heading to State Championships
A report on how Alameda High School's cross country runners performed at Saturday's NCS (North Coast Section) championships and at the earlier WACC (West Alameda County Conference) championship meet from coach Marty Beene (who also writes the Running In The 'Meda blog on Alameda Patch):
NCS Division II
The Hornets will also be sending 8 student-athletes to the State XC meet in Fresno. Our girls team finished 2nd in the Division II (school size 1,600-2,039) race, and will be accompanied by Cameron Tu, who qualified as an individual by finishing in 5th place
Our girls team was led by freshman Lara Vetter, and also included seniors Sonia Xu, Mariko Stenstedt, Polly Fong, and Elise Yuen, and juniors Christine Minor and Allison Pang.
WACC
Alameda High seniors Sonia Xu and Cameron Tu led a record-setting effort by the Hornet Cross-Country team on Saturday, November 9th at the West Alameda County Conference (WACC) Championship meet.
Both runners set the all-time fastest Hornet times for the Hayward High School course, winning their respective races and earning Runner of the Year honors for the Foothill League of the WACC.
Xu's time of 18:39 on the 3-mile course broke an 11-year old record by 14 seconds, as she bested her friend and fellow senior Nicole Anthony of Castro Valley by 6 seconds.
Tu broke 2010 Alameda graduate and current Air Force Academy runner Charlie Perkins' 4-year-old mark by 7 seconds with his new record of 15:21, finishing 14 seconds ahead of Bishop O'Dowd's Colin Burke.
The Alameda girls finished 3rd in the meet behind Bishop O'Dowd and Piedmont, both of whom are ranked 2nd in the North Coast Section (NCS) in their respective divisions and are likely headed to the State Meet in Fresno on November 30th.
The Hornets are striving for their first trip to Fresno since 2005, and appear ready to compete for that spot at the NCS Championship meet on November 23rd at Hayward High School. Their team time of 1:37:47 (sum of the first five runners) shattered the previous Hornet team time record by nearly two minutes last Saturday.
The boys team finished 2nd in the meet behind Bishop O'Dowd, who is ranked 2nd in Division III. Like the girls, the boys team has now shifted their focus to the NCS meet, where they hope to finish among the top three Division II teams to earn a fifth consecutive trip to the State Meet. If both the boys and girls teams qualify for the State Meet, it would mark the first time in Hornet history that both teams qualify in the same year.
The Junior-Senior division girls led the rest of the Hornet swarm with a first place finish, putting eleven runners in front of 2nd place Bishop O'Dowd's fifth and final scoring runner. This, coupled with their 11-0 dual meet mark during the season, brought home a league championship in that division.
The Hornet Frosh-Soph boys team also claimed a league championship by finishing 2nd place behind Castro Valley - Alameda had won the dual meet season with a record of 10-1, and that combination left them with the championship. The Junior-Senior boys finished 2nd in the meet, while the Frosh-Soph girls were 3rd.
Alameda had 58 runners competing in the meet, the most ever for the Hornets, including 33 girls and 25 boys.
Peaking at just the right time, the Hornets averaged nearly 30 seconds faster per person than when they ran the same course last month. Six runners made varsity All-League honors, while twelve earned All-League honors in the junior-senior or frosh-soph divisions.
Varsity All-League Honors
Varsity All-League Honors
Girls
- First Team
- Sonia Xu
- Lara Vetter
- Mariko Stenstedt
- First Team
- Cameron Tu
- Dong Thai
- Kevin Feng
Junior-Senior All-League Honors
Girls
Maria Sazo
Kirsten Hausmann
Montana Sepp
Selina Guan
Boys
Miguel Hidalgo
Joseph Jarecki
Ryan Hosokawa
Frosh-Soph All-League Honors
Girls
Jasmine Virgen
Jennifer Mayer
Boys
Kai OwWing
Christian Vergara
Cameron Yuen
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