Cross-country: Arcadia hands CV girls first league loss since 2004 in dual-meet sweep.
By Gabriel Rizk
Published: Last Updated Wednesday, September 23, 2009 9:40 PM PDT
ARCADIA — There’s still two more Pacific League meets left to be run this season, but on Wednesday, Arcadia High took the first step toward possibly dethroning six-time girls’ league cross-country champion Crescenta Valley.
The Apaches enjoyed first-place finishes in both the girls’ and boys’ portions of the first league meet of the year at Arcadia Park, including the best overall finish in the girls’ race, where it edged Crescenta Valley, 22-34 and Burroughs, 21-40. Entering Wednesday’s meet, the Falcons girls had won 14 straight league meets, with their last loss coming on Sept. 23, 2004 at Arcadia Park, when they lost to Arcadia and Glendale.
In the boys’ race, Arcadia beat second-place Burroughs, 20-38, and third-place Burbank, 17-44, while Crescenta Valley was fourth-best overall, with a 16-47 head-to-head loss versus the Apaches.
Junior Claudia Pham led Crescenta Valley with a second-place finish in 19 minutes 1.47 seconds behind Arcadia’s Catrina Mc Alister (18:50.25), but the Falcons girls’ defeat came down to an unexpected and unusually disappointing day for No. 2 runner Brooke Moultrie.
“She’s not even sure [what happened]. She said she couldn’t breathe out there, so something was definitely wrong,” Crescenta Valley Coach Mark Evans said of Moultrie, a sophomore, who was 34th in 23:31.06. “We felt we could beat Arcadia, but with Brooke feeling sick and not running well, that was just too tough to make up. If she would have been in there, she would have broken up a couple of those Arcadia girls.
“We’re missing that one piece, but we still have a minute gap between our first and what would [normally] be our fifth girl. They’re running as a nice group, but we need to get the group stronger.”
Crescenta Valley’s second finisher was junior Anneke Kakebeen, who was 11th in 20:05.06, followed by sophomore Ali Johnson in 12th in 20:05.28 and freshman Cali King in 13th in 20:05.47.
“I think we did all right,” Pham said. “It was kind of tough. ...It might have been the heat a little bit.”
Frances Pasamba, a senior, finished eighth in 19:37.09 for Glendale, which was sixth-best in team scores. Junior Kimberly Rodriguez was Hoover’s top finisher in 20:46.38, as the Tornadoes bested the Nitros, 20-37, for the fifth-best team result. Senior Katherine Brouwer placed 21st for Hoover in 21:02.34.
In the boys’ race, which was won by Arcadia’s Amar Moussa in 15:20.53, Crescenta Valley senior Mike Duncan was eighth in 16:08.34.
Sophomore Josh Carlos (16:28.84) and junior Cory Williams (16:43) were 15th and 18th, respectively, for the Falcons.
“We’re just really young in the boys,” Evans said. “Our top three guys were right in it. I thought they ran pretty well, and then we go a little over 1:10 from our third to our fourth guy and we just can’t do that and expect to beat anybody.”
Junior Salvador Vega was the top finisher for Hoover, taking 24th in 17:15.47, while Glendale’s Chris Canlas (17:23) and John Canlas (17:27.28) finished 26th and 27th, respectively.
Glendale topped Hoover, 27-28, to finish with the fifth-best team result.
