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| PHS runners race to victory over Central |
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| Written by Mike Vanden Bosch / Patterson Irrigator | |
| Saturday, 29 September 2007 | |
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Proving there’s no place like home, the Patterson High cross country team set several personal records in a league win over Central Catholic on Wednesday at T.W. Patterson Sports Park.
Despite temperatures in the upper 80s and an intermittent yet negligible breeze, the sandy, flat course on the sports park’s periphery was just the venue several runners needed to post improved times. Patterson’s boys squad took three of the top five places as well as sixth through ninth to win 22-39 over Central. The Tigers improved to 3-0 in the Western Athletic Conference. Jose Cortez, who competes on the school’s varsity soccer team and ran track this past spring, couldn’t overtake Central’s Roman Acosta for first place. Still, Cortez set a personal best of 15 minutes, 48 seconds in the nearly 3.1-mile course. “I was aiming for 16 (minutes) and I got in the 15s,” Cortez said. “I thought the course was shorter, but they’re telling me it was 3.1 miles. My calves were hurting because of soccer. It started hurting on Sunday. Doing two sports is kind of hard.” Running in his first varsity race, freshman Jack Relva blazed to a time of 17:10 to take third place. Despite stopping near the finish line because of an apparent injury, Jorge Vazquez still mustered fourth place in 17:43. Senior Lance Michael achieved a personal best with a strong, hustle-driven finish that yielded a sixth-place showing in 18:36. “I started doing long distance events with the track team,” Michael said. “I liked it and thought I might as well do cross country to get in shape for wrestling. I tried to be in the 18s because coach (Klein) has told us if we can get in the 18s, we have a chance to beat Livingston and take WAC.” Rounding out Patterson’s deep boys team was Evan Bachelder in 19 minutes flat, Omar Cortez in 19:03, James Dimter in 19:39, Rafa Martinez in 19:41, Eddie Heinrich in 20:32, Nick Santillan in 21:50 and Tim Lee in 22:12. The girls squad featured a near one-minute time drop for first-place finisher Amanda Moreno in 20 minutes, three seconds, which eclipsed her best time of 21:08 a year ago. “It’s hot, and I didn’t think I’d run that fast,” Moreno conceded. “My goal was to improve my personal record from last year. Melissa (Vega) was pushing me from behind. Usually you run faster when you hear someone right behind you.” Vega also posted her personal best, a drop of over a minute, with a finish of 20 minutes, 34 seconds, which easily surpassed her 2006 best of 21:47. She said she has developed a good-natured rivalry with Moreno, the girls’ frontrunner. “I was ahead of Amanda at the start because I like to start strong,” Vega said. “Amanda got ahead of me. I’d come up on her, but she’s too fast. My goal was to pick up the pace. I’m glad we didn’t run on the grass today.” Sisters Samantha Kramer and Kaelee Kramer took third and fourth place respectively, completing a top four complete sweep for Patterson. Samantha finished in 21:17, while Kaelee wasn’t far behind in 21:33. Patterson travels to Woodward Reservoir for the Woodward Invitational Wednesday. Its next league race is against defending league champion Livingston on Oct. 10 at home.
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