Saratoga News

Shoor, Daniels stick together for Falcons

Cross-country team returns with medals from Half Moon Bay

By Dick Sparrer

Teammates are supposed to stick together.

And Alex Shoor and Alex Daniels of the Saratoga cross-country team certainly did just that when they ran in the 27th annual Artichoke Invitational at Half Moon Bay recently.

Shoor and Daniels were shoulder to shoulder when they crossed the finish line, and because of this teamwork they both went home with medals after leading the Falcons to a third-place finish in the 30-team field.

Shoor was 21st and Daniels 22nd in matching times of 12:49 over the 2.33-mile course. Their effort helped the Falcons run up a low 162 team points to finish 18 points ahead of Mitty in the varsity team standings.

Brett Pahler was close behind in 34th in 12:59 for the Falcons. Drew Copeland was 37th in 13:01, with Michael Smith 48th in 13:16.

"We had outstanding individual performances by the top five boys," said Saratoga coach Marshall Clark. "It was an aggressive effort and a top-five team finish in every race the Falcons were in."

The Saratoga boys were second in the freshman race, third in the frosh-soph division and fourth in the junior varsity division.

Saratoga didn't run a girls' varsity team, but the Falcons were fifth in the girls' frosh-soph division.

Jenny Loo won a medal for her 16th-place finish in the frosh-soph race. She ran 16:24, with Catherine Smith 36th in 17:19, Miranda Sun 42nd in 17:28, Carol Liu 48th in 17:44 and MiMi Choi 53rd in 17:51.

Jeff Beyers was fourth in 13:17 in the boys' frosh-soph race to finish as one of four medal winners for Saratoga in the division. Eric Shan was 18th in 13:47, Ian Jang was 21st in 14:00 and Robert Kim was 22nd in 14:04. David Yin was the fifth Saratoga finisher, running 31st in 14:13.

Jake Christopherson was sixth in 13:22 and Ian Hoare was 17th in 14:02 in the freshman division, and both won medals for Saratoga. Devon Lui was 26th in 14:19, David Cheng was 33rd in 14:44 and Clarence Tam was 36th in 14:55.

In junior varsity action, Ramon Patino won a medal by finishing eighth in 13:58. Reed Woolsey was 23rd (14:44), with Kevin Higgins 24th (14:52).

The Falcons were coming off of a championship showing at their own Saratoga Invitational the week before.

Pahler led the Falcons with an outstanding effort. He was third overall in 10:50, just two seconds off the Saratoga course record of 10:48 set last year by Hank Nothhaft.

Pahler led the Saratoga boys to a varsity title. The Falcons finished with 33 team points to 87 for runnerup Wilcox.

Andrew Sun was sixth in 11:09, with Daniels seventh in 11:11, Beyers eighth in 11:14, Copeland ninth in 11:15, Smith 11th in 11:16 and Shoor 12th in 11:18.

Saratoga also won the boys' frosh-soph title with a low 15 points. Milpitas was a very distant second at 104.

Kim was first overall in 11:52, with David Lin second in 12:00, Hoare third in 12:05, Shan fourth in 12:18, Yin fifth in 12:23 and Lui sixth in 12:24.

Whittney Dotzler finished in the top five for the Saratoga girls to lead them to a team third behind Milpitas and Los Gatos. Dotzler was fifth in 13:28, Yoo 11th in 13:58, Laura Lin 14th in 14:21, Laura Prolo 15th in 14:29 and Justine Lam 19th in 14:46.

Prospect girls win

In other local action, the Prospect girls romped to a 16-41 win over Gunderson to remain unbeaten in the Santa Teresa Division of the Blossom Valley Athletic League. The Panthers are off and running with a 3-0 start in division action.

Mariko Yoshihara raced to a first-place finish in 18:56 on the 2.7-mile course at Santa Teresa Park. Laura Kniskern finished second in 19:06.

The Prospect boys slipped to 0-3 in the division with a 20-43 loss to Gunderson, but Greg Ortiz of Prospect was the individual winner in 16:19.

Greg Johnson romped to an individual win to lead the Westmont boys to a 23-34 win over Leigh in Santa Teresa Division competition. Alberto Contreras was fourth in 17:18, with Craig Renteria third in 17:25.

The Westmont girls lost 19-42 to Leigh despite a solid showing by junior Claire Doyle, who finished third in 21:19.

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