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The Woodside boys and Menlo-Atherton girls go into Saturday’s Peninsula Athletic League cross country finals at Crystal Springs as favorites for the team titles.
Both were pretty easy winners at the last PAL meet, Oct. 12 at Bedwell Bayfront Park. Woodside’s Ethan Brooks won the boys race that day by 19 seconds. Woodside coach Al Hernandez expects a closer race this time between Brooks and Carlmont’s Aidan Dimick, who edged Brooks,12:02 to 12:04, at the first PAL meet, Sept. 14 at Half Moon Bay.
Woodside had three runners in the top four at that race and four (Brooks, Maximilian Hohendor, Nayan Smuek and Hans Buhr) in the top eight at the second PAL race. The Wildcats will contend for the CCS title in Division II along with Wilcox, St. Francis and Willow Glen.
Sequoia’s Ethan Bae and Jackson Bae finished among the top nine at Bedwell.
The M-A girls have had a very strong, consistent season. The Bears had all five runners in the top nine at the last PAL meet with a gap of 1:04 between the first finisher, Tatum Olesen, and the fifth girl, Katriona Briggs. In between Annie Pflaum, Sofia Melani and Madeleine Boyle were the team’s second through fourth finishers.
They had all five girls in the top eight in winning the team championship in the large schools race at the Artichoke Invitational. They also finished first as a team in their race at the Woodbridge Invitational in Southern California with a spread of 0:54.
Woodside’s Elle Marsyla will be favored to capture individual honors Saturday in the girls race.
M-A will be in Division I at CCS, from which the top two teams advance to the state meet. M-A coach Eric Wilmurt said he expected Los Gatos and Los Altos to be the likely competition for his team in Division I at CCS.
The West Bay Athletic League finals are scheduled for Friday.
WCAL Championships
St. Francis junior Jack Sloan placed sixth and the Lancers finished second behind Bellarmine in the West Catholic Athletic League championships at Crystal Springs on Wednesday.
Sloan completed the 2.95 mile course in 16:09.9. Serra’s Tommy Rogers won the race in 15:20.7.
Also scoring for St. Francis were Jamie Zepeda (11th, 16:27.5), Owen Kato (13, 16:34.8), Colin Pereira (17, 16:50.8) and Cheston Opsasnick (26, 17:09.3).
Freshman Sabrina Zanetto raced 18:25.0 to win the girls race and lead a near-sweep as St. Francis won the team title with 19 points.
The Lancers had all five of its scoring runners finish among the top six. Junior Hinako Yamamoto (18:59.4) placed third and was followed by sophomore Lillian Kaelber (19:10.6), junior Anna Fawcett (19:16.8), and freshman Caitlin Cilley (19:27.2). Sophomore Lily Eulate was 11th in 20:13.8.
PSAL Championships
Nueva, sweeping the top six places, handily won the boys team title of the Private Schools Athletic League on Thursday at Crystal Springs Cross Country Course.
Kehillah Jewish placed 11th, Mid-Peninsula was 12th, and East Palo Alto Academy did not run a full team.
Mid-Peninsula junior Jonathan Wu finished 13th and is one of three individuals not on advancing teams to qualify for the Central Coast Section meet. EPA senior Leo Garcia also advanced.
Kehillah sophomore Nikhil Chawla, who placed 37th, was the Rams top finisher.
On the girls side, Nueva swept the top five places to earn the team title. Kehillah junior Isabella Tang placed 20th and advanced as an individual.
