HIGH SCHOOL CROSS-COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS : Kabo’s Bid for Trip to Fresno Falls a Little Short at the End : City Section: In second place 10 yards from finish, Kennedy senior collapses, then crawls to 15th place.

WOODLAND HILLS —  She was 10 yards from the finish line at Pierce College on Saturday. Ten yards from a second-place finish in the City Section cross-country championships. Ten yards from qualifying for the state championships next Saturday in Fresno.

Then, Kristin Kabo collapsed.

Kabo tried again and again to get to her feet. Meanwhile, 13 runners went by. The winner, Hamilton senior Genevieve DeBose, had passed Kabo, who had led most of the race, 150 yards from the finish when the Kennedy High senior appeared to be struggling.

DeBose finished the race in 19 minutes 33 seconds.

“My leg felt really heavy and it wouldn’t move,” said Kabo, a rookie in cross-country who finished fifth in the 3,200 meters during the City championships last May. “It was like glued to the ground. That’s never happened to me before.”

So she finished the race the only way possible.

“I had to crawl,” said Kabo, who was walking gingerly 10 minutes after finishing in 15th place.

DeBose said she noticed a problem with Kabo in the home stretch.

“She was breathing really hard and slowing down,” she said. Kennedy Coach Pete Nelson wasn’t sure what caused Kabo’s fall, but thought it wasn’t overexertion.

“It wasn’t like she ran out too fast,” Nelson said of Kabo, who finished in 20:38 and had clocked the fastest time in the section (19:06) and was the pre-race favorite.

The Belmont girls easily defeated second-place Huntington Park, 35-114. El Camino Real (130 points), Taft (131) and Birmingham (135) finished fourth, fifth and sixth. Only the top two teams qualify for the state meet.

Birmingham junior Roseanna Heagerty (19:55) finished fourth and El Camino Real’s Sarah Wilkes (20:01.75) seventh. Both advance to the state meet because they were among the top five individuals not on a qualifying team.

The Birmingham boys’ team surprised even itself by placing second with 91 points. Though well behind Belmont’s 52, the Braves didn’t expect success when the season began. “It wasn’t a team that had real quality runners at the beginning of the season,” Birmingham Coach Scott King said. “At the early invitationals, most of the teams on the board (today) beat us.”

Ricardo Valenzuela of Belmont finished first in 15:19. Monroe’s Jose Padilla (15:42) led Valley-area runners, taking fifth place and qualifying for the state meet.