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Fremont's Eric Fontes races to a 10th-place finish at the Central Park Invitational. The Fremont sensation came back to finish in the top 20 at Half Moon Bay.
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Fontes romps to 10th in Central Park run
By Dick Sparrer
It was 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 2-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.
Fremont finished down the list in eighth place in the team poll, but Eric Fontes certainly did his part for the Firebirds. Fontes raced into the top 10 at the meet by finishing 10th overall in 12:27.
Hennessy led the Gatos girls to a title the same day with her win. Michelle Beritzhoff was third in 14:43 with Carolyn Penner ninth in 15:19.
Fontes came back later in the week with a solid top-20 showing at the rugged Half Moon Bay Invitational. The Fremont star raced over the 2.25-mile course in 12:38 to finish 19th in the large school division.
Monta Vista's Jarrod Rothman just missed a spot in the top 20 at Half Moon Bay, but finished just four seconds behind Fontes to nail 21st in 12:42.
A week earlier, Celeste Dunlap of Cupertino finished ninth at the Ram Invitational at Westmoor High School. Dunlap romped over the 2.4-mile course in 16:06.
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
