Saratoga's Jeff Beyers raced to an 11th-place finish to lead the Falcons to a team second at the Central Park Invitational last Tuesday.
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Falcons 2nd at Central Park
Beyers, Christopherson lead Saratoga effort
By Dick Sparrer
It was a hot day when the cross country teams of the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League converged in Santa Clara for the Central Park Invitational last Tuesday... and not just because the mercury was climbing over the 90-degree mark.
Girnay Guangui was hot. So was Heather Hennessy. And so were the girls and boys teams from Los Gatos High School
All of them were running to titles when teams from the De Anza and El Camino divisions combined for a 2.3-mile run that featured all of the teams from the SCVAL.
Santa Clara's Guangui was the hottest of them all. The talented senior raced to an individual title in the course record time of 11:25.
Hennessy covered the two-plus miles in 14:23 to finish as the girls winner, and she led the Wildcats to the team title in the process.
The Los Gatos boys were hot, too, putting five runners among the top seven finishers to cruise to a team championship.
Russ Martin finished second in 11:50 with Matt Bates third in 12:00, Zack Regner fourth in 12:03, Tomas Viramontes sixth in 12:06 and Jeff Hoeft seventh in 12:15 as the Wildcats coasted to the easy win.
Jeff Beyers was 11th in 12:43 and Jake Christopherson ended up 12th in 12:46 to help Saratoga to a second-place finish in the team standings.
Gatos ran up a low 22 points to finish first overall with Saratoga a solid second at 88. Los Altos finished a distant third at 111.
Beyers and Christopherson led the Saratoga effort with Richard La 20th in 13:10, Nobuaki Tomine 22nd in 13:16, David La 23rd in 13:18 and Don Prolo 27th in 13:26.
Dernie Wang was 35th in 16:38 with MiMi Choi 42nd in 17:07 and Laura Lin 45th in 17:19 to lead the Saratoga girls in the race.
The Falcons ended up second in the boys junior varsity division, third in the girls JV race and seventh in the boys frosh-soph class.
Lee Blair was fifth in 14:09 with Tony Yiu seventh in 14:14 to lead the Saratoga boys to a JV second behind Los Gatos. Devon Lui was 11th in 14:32 with Ian Kolb 18th in 14:48 and Hesse McKechnie 23rd in 15:03.
Carol Liu posted the best time of the day for the Saratoga girls to lead the junior varsity to a team third. Her 16:25 bettered Wang's varsity effort, and left her fifth in the JV race.
Celia Dotzler was 15th in 17:28 with Judy Wang 18th in 17:33, Daphne Lo 22nd in 18:02 and Priya Talreja 28th in 18:25.
Justin Gardner was 19th in 14:24 to lead Saratoga to a team seventh in the boys frosh-soph division. Trevor Adams was 26th in 14:43 with Randy Scialabba 43rd in 15:37, Thomas Chung 44th in 15:38 and Tomo Mori 46th in 15:44.
In other local cross country action, Laura Kniskern helped Prospect to a split with Independence and Lick in the Santa Teresa Division of the Blossom Valley Athletic League last week.
Kniskern finished second overall in 20:27 to lead the Panthers to a 15-50 sweep against the Comets. Prospect lost a tough 28-30 decision to the 76ers.
Danielle Zelinski was close behind Kniskern for the Panthers, finishing fourth in 21:49.
The same day, the Prospect boys ran to a 23-32 win over Independence, but lost 15-42 to Lick. Frank Ogawa was seventh in 17:59 to lead the Prospect effort. Josh Miner was ninth in 18:19.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
