This year’s league championship and who wins it is on a lot of people’s minds. San Lorenzo Valley High School Cougars legendary cross-country and track coach, Rob Collins, mused that, “most likely it’ll be between Scotts Valley and San Lorenzo Valley.”
He said, “We’re both in the small schools division; our main competitor will be Division III Aptos High School, [a] much larger school, and always a powerhouse in [the] Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League.”
Scotts Valley High School cross-country head coach, Doug Chase, said, “It’ll be hard to beat our last year achievements.” The “boys won the SCCAL, [and] finished third in state championships.”
The girls were second in the league and third in the Central Coast Section and went, as did the boys, to the fifth straight year State meet. Chase was still enthusiastic about winning the conference. He said,” Despite losing three out of our top five runners, we still have John Ross and Luke McCarthy.” Both are seniors and both are all-league for the last two years.
The girls lost one runner, but non-running injuries prevented a few top runners from returning. However, they still have senior Annika Osterkamp, their number two, and freshman Jessica Kain, their number one runner.
The Falcons already had a few meets. At the Stevenson Relays, both boys and girls won the small schools division. Then in a league meet a week ago, the boys beat both Aptos and Saint Francis, by 27-30. The girls beat Saint Francis High School 15-50, but lost to Aptos High School 46-17. At the Chieftain Invitational in Salinas, they placed fourth in a field of 22 schools.
This Saturday, September 25, the Scotts Valley High School varsity will run in division IV of the Stanford Invitational, while the junior varsity will run at the Ram Invitational at Westmore High School in Cupertino. San Lorenzo Valley High School will also be participating in the Stanford Invitational.
This year the SLVHS teams are stronger, with much more depth than last year. Already having won 3-0 this year, with one league win over Harbor High School, SLVHS is looking forward to the rest of the season. The top two boy runners are junior Ian Gallagher and freshman Chris Anderson. On the girls’ side, the number one runner is junior Abbey Meck and freshman Sophia Zachua is number two.
“There’s a great spirit and dedication on this team,” says Abbey Meck. “A large part of the team shows up daily at 6:00 a.m. for practice and they don’t leave ’til 7:20 a.m. or so.” Meck said that, “only the top seven runners on both girls and boys teams make it to the varsity team, so everybody’s trying really hard.”
The Stanford Invitational is on Saturday, September 26 at 9:00 a.m. in Palo Alto. Falcons’ girls and boys will run in division IV, and so will the San Lorenzo Valley girls. The boys’ Cougars’ team will run in division III.
