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Sonoma boys 10th, girls 13th in muddy NCS cross country meets

Course was wet, slippery on cold day

On a cold, rainy, muddy and slippery Saturday on the Hayward High School course, all the runners on Sonoma Valley High School’s cross country boys and girls’ teams managed to stay afoot in completing their seasons at the challenging North Coast Section Division-3 championship meets.

Competing in an NCS Division-3 boys’ fields of 20 teams and 132 runners, the Dragon boys ended in 10th place, led by senior standout Chris Tose racing to a 21st-place finish, which fell just 25 seconds short of qualifying for the state meet.

Following Tose’s 21st-place time of 16 minutes 51 seconds were Sonoma’s senior A.J. Lemaire’s 63rd place in 18:20; junior Keegan Ginter’s 66th in 18:24; junior Owen Ljung’s 70th in 18:31; and senior Peter Gray’s 90th in 19:19.

The Lady Dragons competed in an NCS Division-3 fields of 21 teams and 111 runners and finished in 13th place, led by senior Hannah Cenci – who claimed an individual second-place medal at the recent Sonoma County League girls’ championships – earning 34th-place in the girls’ race.

Cenci finished with a time of 20:19, followed by Sonoma senior Gianna Biaggi’s 54th-place in 21:32; senior Serena Spry’s 55th in 21:34; senior Laura Amador’s 74th in 22:41; freshman Madeline Libbey’s 78th in 22:45; and junior Itzel Macedonio’s 97th in 24:42.

“As you can imagine, it was a wet, cold and slippery, muddy race for both teams – surely not a day for PRs (personal records). But our runners battled the elements and they all finished the race, with Chris (Tose) finishing in the top-10, just 25 seconds short of qualifying for state,” said Sonoma coach John Litzenberg.