Boys, girls runners capture state cross country titles for PV Intermediate School
Members of the Palos Verdes Intermediate School 8th grade girls championship cross country team include (left to right) Zora Haasnoot, Julia Masuda, Grace Bonvechio, Coach Scott Reid, Shayli Atashi, Anna Terrell, Audrey Griffin, Greta Norris, Paris Dunlavey, Alicia Lala, Sarah Gilchrist, Karen Hirano, and Riley Leongkaye. Photo by Neeraj Lala
by Shelby Ponce
Palos Verdes Intermediate School (PVIS) ran away with two team titles at the Middle School California State Championships, held Oct. 13 at Riverside’s Reid Park.
PVIS was the only middle school team to have four top-3 team finishers. The Sea Kings won team titles in the 8th grade girls and 6th grade boys races.
“The coaches are thrilled with the way all the kids competed, Coach Scott Reid said. “This was a course that took away what has traditionally been the program’s strength. A big reason PVIS has had so much success at Mt. SAC the past three or four years is the similarity of that course to the PV High course. The highest point of the State course was the chalk on the starting line, but the kids really responded. The main thing is all day long there were kids having these amazing races where you go ‘where did that come from?’ The answer of course is obvious: it came from all their hard work and it’s nice to see that labor validated at the state meet.”
Anna Terrell led the 8th grade girls finishing in exactly 12 minutes, placing 5th overall. She was followed by teammates Grace Bonvechio (10th, 13:22), Shayli Atashi (12th, 13:29), Alicia Lala (20th, 13:47), Karen Hirano (23rd, 13:50), Julia Masuda (34th, 14:16) and Greta Norris (35th, 14:21).
Landon Corman paced the 7th grade girls team to a second-place finish with a time of 13:46 placing 11th overall. Also contributing were Zofia Lok (13:55), Amber Chen (14:04), Sarah Park (14:14), and Jadyn Lee (14:15.5).
In the 6th grade competition,Natalie Wang (13:45) and Maddie Farnsworth (14:28) led PVIS to a tie for third place.
The PVIS sixth grade championship boys team was led by Adam Hardesty, who finished eighth overall with a time of 12:51. Contributing to the win were Michael Mackiewicz (10th, 12:57), Alex Naehu (13th, 13:03), Tobias Rodriguez (14th, 13:07), and Ross Borden (20th, 13:19).
Matthew Cartmill (11:27) led the 8th grade boys team to a second place finish along with William Kirk (11:57), Trystan Sheldon (12:04), J.P. Warner (12:25) and Dylan Booth (2:26).
The seventh grade boys team finished fourth behind the running of Matthew Farnsworth (11:57), Kai Shikiya (13:02), Daniel Chu (13:05), Owen Chas (13:10), Max Orsinger (13:21), Karsten Wanke (13:27), Dylan Bigley (13:28), Zach Moore (13:48), Cole Yamane (13:56) and Jake Yamane (14:31).
PVIS teams were coached by Scott Reid, Linda Reid, Martha Espinoza, Roger Booth, Caroline Hardesty and Frank Ponce.