Olive Peirce runners excel at Mt. SAC Invitational

By Joe Naiman

The seventh-grade and eighth-grade races at the Mt. SAC Invitational cross country meet included top-five finishes by all three Olive Peirce Middle School teams with enough runners to be scored along with three individual top-five finishes.

Twenty-eight boys and 10 girls represented Olive Peirce in the Oct. 15 races on the 1.2-mile course on the Mount San Antonio College campus in Walnut. Olive Peirce’s eighth-grade girls finished second among 38 teams, and the eighth-grade boys and seventh-grade boys both finished fifth among 33 squads.

“They did great,” said Coach J.J. Sclar. “The runners ran really smart.”

The eighth-grade girls race had 322 runners, including six from Olive Peirce. Ciara Lucas placed third overall with a time of 9:09, and Kori Cortez was fourth at 9:11.

“It was a huge feat,” Sclar said of two Olive Peirce runners in the top five.

Perla Cruz took 9:54 to capture 19th place, Hannah Farhat’s time of 10:05 was worth 24th place, Emily Sojourner had the 49th-place time of 10:42, and Lexie Hall’s time of 12:33 earned 111th place.

The 22 Olive Peirce students in the eighth-grade boys race were led by Logan White, whose time of 7:58 placed him fourth among the race’s 285 runners. Joey Jauregui had a 31st-place time of 8:37, Gabe Plendcio was 38th at 8:54, Anthony Meza earned 49th place after completing the course in 9:08, Noah Price took 9:35 to finish 74th, Brandon Carlino’s time of 9:38 gave him 75th place, Carlos Morales received 77th place after taking 9:40, Kyle Jordan spent 10:07 on the course to earn 108th place, Jackson Sutter’s time of 10:15 produced 118th place, and Kenneth Durseindt earned 119th place 10:18 after the starter’s gun was fired.

Olive Peirce had six of the 312 runners in the seventh-grade boys race. Noah Hirsch was 12th with a time of 8:55, J.T. Roulier finished 19th and had a time of 9:06, Trevor White’s time of 9:33 gave him 31st place, Colton Meskell had the 32nd-place time of 9:35, Jason Beals was the 48th finisher after completing the course in 10:12, and Ian Cirillo placed 53rd after taking 10:24.

Olive Peirce only had four runners in the seventh-grade girls race, which was not enough for a team score. Marissa Talle placed 28th among the 295 runners with a time of 10:25, Nicole Pshsnychnik had a time of 10:53 which was worth 41st place, Brante Roe was the 113th finisher and had a time of 13:06, and Jessica Gallego spent 13:07 on the course and placed 114th.

Sclar noted that the event was also enjoyable.

“Beyond our team doing really well scoring-wise, it was just a great day,” he said. “It was great to be the coach.”