No titles, but DHS boys cross country and Meads headed to states
So close. Oh, so close.
The Davis High boys cross country team came up just shy of an eighth consecutive Sac-Joaquin Section championship on Friday morning, finishing a single point behind Oak Ridge at the Willow Hill course in Folsom.
The Blue Devils were paced by junior Jack Scranton, whose time of 16 minutes, 23 seconds was the fastest of the day by 12 seconds, making him the individual section champion. Teammate Danny Pugh also turned in a fabulous race (16:38), and earned a fourth-place finish.
DHS senior Andrew Croft finished third among Devils, and 12th overall, with a strong time of 16:55, just missing 11th place.
Veteran coach Bill Gregg said it was near misses up and down the lineup that cost the Blue Devils, but also gave the credit to the Trojans.
“Oak Ridge really hammered hard the last 100 meters, and they picked off a couple of guys here and there,” said Gregg. “It’s only one point, and I (don’t) think any individual on our team can own that point. It was just an imperfect set of circumstances.”
Though the local boys would prefer to have gone as section champs, their second-place finish still comes with an invitation to the state championships on Nov. 26 on Fresno’s Woodward Park course.
“We all tried our hardest, and it was really close. We’re still going to states, and we’re going to see what happens,” Scranton said. “Even though we all really wanted the win at sections … we can make up for what happened (in Fresno).
The DHS girls also will be represented in Fresno, in the form of sophomore Sophie Meads. DHS took third behind St. Francis and Oak Ridge, just missing a team berth in the state championships, but Meads took second place overall in 19:03 to punch her ticket.
Other strong Blue Devil girls performances came from Laney Teaford, who broke the 20-minute mark by two seconds and ended up in 12th overall, followed by Laura Daggett (25th in 20:48) and senior Kate Latsch (26th, 20:52). For Teaford and Latsch, the times were personal records for the course.
With the DHS boys moving on and Meads qualifying for the state championships for the second straight year, Friday was a successful day despite neither varsity team capturing a section title.
And that success even trickled down to the lower division Blue Devils.
The DHS junior varsity boys team won its competition thanks to top-10 finishes by Ethan Hall, Reinert Toft, John Testerman and William Young. Hall’s time of 17:18, which put him in third overall, would have landed him 27th place in the varsity boys race.
Early Friday morning, Devil runner Daniel Rowen opened the meet in style for DHS, dashing past all other sophomore boys to take first in that race. Rowen was flanked by teammates Matthew Mayr and Gavin Monges, who finished sixth and 10th, respectively, as the Blue Devils were second as a team.
Blake Croft ran away with a with the freshman boys race, winning by 20 seconds over his nearest challenger to lead Davis to a second-place finish.
The frosh/soph girls also finished second thanks to Giulia McIsaac and Jeanne-Marie McPherson, both of whom came in at 13:53 to take sixth and seventh individually. In addition, the DHS JV girls took fourth place.
“You look at the freshmen boys and the frosh/soph girls … they were much closer to first place this week than they were last week,” Gregg noted. “Again, it was just a few places here and there that made the difference.”
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Posted by Benjy Egel
on Nov 12 2011.
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