Girls cross country team improves running times

By Joe Naiman

Ramona High School’s girls cross country team had two smaller meets before the Mount Carmel/Movin’ Shoes Cross-Country Invite held Saturday at San Diego’s Morley Field, and many of Ramona’s newest runners adjusted well to the larger-field atmosphere, their coach said.

“Overall the girls did very well,” said Coach Kim Toth.

All of the grade-level races at Morley Field utilized a 2.75-mile course.

“It was a very overwhelming race,” Toth said. “There’s so many girls.”

The senior Division 2 race had 140 girls. Lauren Cortez finished 11th while setting a course personal record with a time of 16:55.

Cortez took 17:45 to run last year’s junior race.

All of the Ramona runners who competed in the 2010 race set course personal records. The senior race also saw Summer Lempe place 65th with a time of 19:36, Caitlin Choy earn 67th place after taking 19:40, and Kelly Helman complete the course in 20:15 to receive 83rd place.

Cassidy Blankenbaker finished 15th in the 157-runner freshman race with a time of 18:00 while Francheska Gonzalez took 21st place in that race for her performance of 18:11.

“It was nice to see them pretty well up in the front of the pack together,” Toth said.

Blankenbaker and Gonzalez were Ramona’s only two freshmen in the race, which kept the Bulldogs from utilizing pack running more significantly, but the two ninth-graders were successful in that strategy.

“They did stay together and work with each other,” Toth said.

Rachel Brown placed 70th among the 179 runners in the sophomore race after completing the course in 19:28. Teresa Leon finished 111th at 20:55.

Ramona’s best performance in the junior race was by Morgan Perkins, who had a time of 21:11 to place 103rd among the 164 girls in the race. Ronney Hughes had a 125th-place time of 22:06 while Alaina Lindquist had Ramona’s greatest personal record drop, lowering her 2010 time of 25:30 to a 143rd-place time of 23:27.

Toth noted that some of her runners disliked the pre-season work at the time they were doing it.

“It paid off in their race,” she said.

The Bulldogs open league competition tomorrow against Westview. The meet at Dos Picos Park will also be Ramona’s first home meet of the year.