Christopherson leads the Falcons to Saratoga win

By Dick Sparrer

Santa Clara's Girmay Guangul seems to be rewriting the record books this fall... or at least he has for the past couple of weeks.

The talented cross country runner set a new course record on his way to a victory in the Central Park Invitational in Santa Clara a couple of weeks ago, and he backed that up with a win in record time on the two-mile course at the Saratoga Invitational.

Guangul covered the two miles in 9:51.8 to set the new course mark and outrun Zack Regner of Los Gatos to the finish line. Guangul broke his own course mark of 10:01.9 set last year.

Regner nailed second in 10:25, just beating John Fong (10:27) of Los Altos and Lenin Zapata (10:28) of Santa Clara to the finish chute.

Jacob Christopherson of Saratoga was close behind in fifth place in 10:36, and his effort was good enough to lead the Falcons to the team title as they competed on their home course on the Saratoga campus.

"It was very tight," said Saratoga coach Marshall Clark, whose squad finished with a low 59 points to edge second-place Los Altos (60). Wilcox (78) was third with Santa Clara (105) fourth, Monta Vista (105) fifth, Milpitas (133) sixth, Fremont (181) seventh and Lynbrook (182) eighth. (Santa Clara edged Monta Vista for fourth based on the performance of its sixth man.)

The boys varsity win was just one of two victories for the Falcons at the invitational. Saratoga won the boys junior varsity title, finished third in the girls varsity class and nailed fourth in the boys frosh-soph division.

"It was an excellent team effort in all races," said Clark.

Christopherson led the Saratoga showing with his fifth-place finish. Richard La ended up 11th in 10:50 with David La 13th in 10:51, Jeff Beyers 17th in 11:00 and Don Prolo 18th in 11:02.

Nobuaki Tomine finished 26th overall in 11:19 and sophomore Brett Stanger was 34th in 11:31.

Kai Yu of Lynbrook ended up 20th overall in 11:03 to lead all Vikings to the finish line. Sophomore Jeff Whitsett was 40th in 11:43 for the Vikes with junior Kevin Perng 42nd in 11:43, soph Warren Tsu 44th in 11:49 and senior Matthew Cheung 45th in 11:50.

Saratoga won the boys junior varsity race, finishing with a low 37 points to 42 points for runner-up Milpitas.

Lee Blair led a one-two-three finish for the Falcons. Blair was first in 11:44 with David Yin second in 11:53 and Tony Yiu third in 11:54. Warren Wong was 15th in 12:29 with Steven Goldsworthy 16th in 12:34.

Paul Zimmerman was fourth overall in 11:56 to lead Lynbrook to a team fourth in the boys junior varsity class. Murtaza Dawoodbhoy was 17th in 12:37 with Allen Chang 19th in 12:39, Patrick Goldman 22nd in 12:43 and Allan Nir 29th in 12:55.

The Saratoga girls ended up third overall at the invitational behind Monta Vista and Los Gatos.

Freshman Paula McNally raced to a fifth-place finish in 13:06 to lead the Saratoga effort. Dernie Wang was 12th in 13:47 with MiMi Choi 15th in 13:52, Jenny Yoo 26th in 14:19, Laura Lin 28th in 14:24 and Brandi Tate 30th in 14:26.

Lynbrook freshman Jessica Ignaitis finished 14th overall in 13:51 in the girls race. Polly Sidorovsky was 21st in 14:03 with Vanessa Streg 22nd in 14:04, Hyan Kim 24th in 14:13 and Fennell Keever 29th in 14:25.

Saratoga finished fourth in the boys frosh-soph division behind Fremont, Wilcox and Los Gatos.

Ryuta Saka was 11th in 12:05 to lead the Falcons with Trevor Adams 12th in 12:06 and Justin Gardner 13th in 12:08. Randy Scialabba was 26th in 12:32 with Jacob Osborne 27th in 12:46.

Freshman Steven Wishnack led Lynbrook by finishing 25th in 12:42 for the Vikings.

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