The Trinity girls cross-country team finished third overall to pick up its second Heritage League win in as many meets, while the boys team placed eighth overall and fourth in league on Wednesday at Heritage League meet No. 2 at the Coastal Invitational at Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Park.
Led by junior Eva Lintereur, who finished the race in 12th place overall in 22 minutes, 20.10 seconds, Trinity had five out of the eight runners finish within the top 25 girls runners.
“I felt so much better than our last race, which was our first race,” Lintereur said. “I knew I had to start picking it up, so I beat the time that I got last race by almost a minute. I was so happy about that and I have to keep on training hard to beat the time that I just got.”
Senior Emma Cunningham recorded the second-fastest time for the Knights at 23:09.70 for 20th place. Kate Stimson (23:23.30) and Catie Robertson (24:13.20) finished in 21st and 24th place, respectively.
Freshman Karis Richardson, who coach Kathleen Kahovec praised before the race, showed just how valuable her addition to the team is after finishing in 22nd place at 23:32.30.
“She is an excellent athlete and we are very fortunate that we got her for cross-country. She is fast and does everything we say and pushes herself so far,” Kahovec said. “She’s going to be a great runner.”
Junior Elianne Wang finished in 46th place (26:29.00), while a pair of freshmen Megan Perry and Sarah Fudge finished 78th and 96th, respectively.
A pair of junior boys led the boys team as Chase Critser learned from his mistakes the previous race and paced himself to begin the race.
“My first race I was killing it,” Critser said. “I was way out in the front and then I had maybe 20 people pass me.”
Critser conserved his energy and bought his time until the second mile and ended up setting a new PR by about 18 seconds with a time of 18:00.60, good for 21st place.
Despite not feeling too good before the race, Chapman Wolf wasn’t far behind Critser in 32nd place with a time of 18:46.10.
“I wasn’t really feeling my greatest, but sometimes you have to suck it up and go for it and that’s what I did today,” Wolf said. “All of us enjoyed this course much better than our first race at Griffith (Park) because that race was flat. Here you have the hills and it gives you that extra speed. Today I felt strong on the hills and I had a good pacing partner so I was able to pace myself throughout the race and have a strong finish.”
Freshmen Cai Margrave (19:08.10) and Samuel Robertson (20:34.50) came in 41st and 80th, respectively. Mario Bethke finished in 122nd place.
“I think the freshmen guys are really going to kill it,” Critser said of the boys runners. “Each race they have dropped their pace at least 20 seconds. It’s crazy. For some of these guys, it’s their seventh day running. For others, it’s their tenth day running which is insane. By the end of the season they will definitely be up with us.”
Junior Liam Hambel-Rodin finished in 70th place in 20:19.20 and sophomores Andrew Ketenjian (20:39.80), Chad Mitchell (20:43.40) and Ryan Kim (21:24.60) rounded out Trinity’s top eight boy runners in 83rd, 87th and 96th place, respectively.
“We love inviting in the new people, we are really a family in cross-country and we are all close,” Wolf said. “It’s just a really fun team to be on and we love the camaraderie. Everyone cheers each other on and it’s kind of the nature of the sport, we all have a great time.”
The Knights return home to Santa Clarita on Thursday, Oct. 3rd for Heritage League meet No. 3 at 4 p.m. at Central Park.
