The 34th annual Santa Clarita Valley Cross-Country Invitational took place over the weekend at Castaic Lake. Canyon hosted the race, with SCV schools Saugus and Trinity Classical Academy also competing.
The meet Saturday featured 2,004 runners from 70 teams: 34 from CIF-Southern Section divisions 1 and 2, which are considered large schools, and 36 from division 3, 4 and 5, which are the small schools.
“It went very well and we had a lot of coaches compliment it,” said Canyon cross-country coach Paul Broneer. “We had perfect weather on the day and there wasn’t any dust. The temperature was in the high 60s, so it was ideal running conditions.”
Saugus’ girls varsity cross-country team took home the first-place trophy out of 19 large schools that competed in the 3-mile race. The Centurions finished with 67 points and a total team time of 1:37:50.08 seconds, a full second better than runner-up Madera.
All seven of the Centurions’ girls runners finished in The top 35 out of 149 competitors.
Sophia Gannon was the Saugus girls’ best-finisher crossing the finish line in 12th place with a time of 19:03.61.
Maya Martinez (19:35.61), Ariana Cazar (19:37.39) and Kylie Rasplicka (19:43.20) were the other top finishers for the Cents, finishing 21st, 22nd and 24th, respectively.
The Centurions boys finished the meet in sixth place at 188 points with a total team time of 1:23:57.49, three minutes and six seconds off the first-place finisher Highland.
Out of the 164 boys varsity runners that competed, Saugus had four runners finish in the Top 50 with Aidan Soto pacing the Cents to a 20th-place finish with a time of 16:15.82 seconds.
Tyler Lentz was the Cents’ second-best finisher with a time of 16:47.18, good enough for 37th-place.
Ethan DeForest and Lucas Bautista finished in 46th and 48th-place overall for the Centurions.
Trinity Classical Academy Knights was the only SCV school to compete in the small-school runs with the boys team finishing ninth out of 22 schools with a total team time of 1:28:54.23, with the girls team finishing in 13th-place out of 17 schools with a total team time of 2:01:41.97.
Knights’ Shane Lintereur had the best finish of any SCV runner, finishing in ninth place with a time of 16:31.82. Brothers Andrew and Luke Pfeiffer had the second and third best finishes out of the Knights boys runners in 44th and 56th place respectively.
Eva Lintereur, Shane’s younger sister, finished in 37th place for the Trinity girls varsity runners with a time of 21:37.54. Keili Butler wasn’t far behind her, finishing with a time of 21:48.47, good for 39th-place.
The Trinity girls varsity team finished in 13th out of 17 small schools that competed in the meet.
With over 250 schools competing, most of the Foothill League teams, if not all, will race at the Mt. San Antonio College Invitational held at Mt. SAC on Saturday.
Races begin at 7:30 a.m. and last until 5:30 p.m.
