Prep column: Across country racing

Barry Faulkner

While attention back home focused on Friday’s Battle of the Bay

football game between Newport Harbor High and Corona del Mar, Harbor

senior cross country star Amber Steen was conducting her own “Battle of

the Bei” in North Carolina.

Steen, the reigning CIF Southern Section Division II cross country

champion, finished eighth in the elite race at the Great American Cross

Country Festival at McAlpine Greenway Park Saturday in Charlotte. She ran

the soggy 3.1-mile course in 18:26.

More importantly, however, was Steen’s personal battle with Montgomery

High of Santa Rosa senior Sara Bei (pronounced bay), a three-time state

individual champion who finished seventh in 18:21.

“To be only five seconds behind Sara shows me I’ve improved a lot,”

said Steen, fifth in the Division II state final won by Bei last fall in

Fresno. “When we’d raced before, I was between 35 and 50 seconds behind.”

Steen, also the reigning Southern Section Division II champion in the

1,600 meters (she was third at the state meet), said the race, though

thoroughly enjoyable, reinforced her desire to run collegiately in the

West.

“When I woke up (Saturday) I found out the race had been postponed

because parts of the course were under more than two feet of water,”

Steen said. “They delayed the start six hours (to 5 p.m. Eastern time)

and the course was still pretty messy. But it was a blast to run.”

Still, Steen said she would prefer to avoid such harsh weather,

particularly snow and cold, in the future. For this reason, she has

planned to use her five recruiting trips to visit Arizona, Oregon, USC,

UC Irvine and BYU. She has already visited Tucson and will pick her spots

for the other four over the coming weeks. She said she would like to sign

a letter of intent the first signing period in November, but she did not

rule out the possibility of delaying her decision.

Once a wide-eyed freshman new to running, Steen’s rugged

competitiveness, which Sailors Coach Eric Tweit believes is her strongest

attribute, gave way to refreshing wonder as she recalled her weekend back

east.

“It was so gorgeous back there. The trees were so thick, you couldn’t

seem more than 100 feet ahead of you. And it was pure green, everywhere,”

she said.

The experience was not all postcards and positives, however, as the

muddy conditions may have cost Steen a brand new pair of running shoes.

“I think they’re ruined,” she said. “They used to be white, but, even

after the rain washed off some of the mud, I probably will never be able

to clean them up.”

Steen said the conditions were too much for a novel insulation method

she picked up at the meet.

“I flew in Thursday and watched the college race on Friday night,”

Steen said. “I noticed all the runners were covering their shoes with

duct tape to keep the water and mud out. I tried it and it actually

worked pretty well. I’d never heard of doing that.”

With her final prep season just underway, Steen hopes to work herself

into position to do something else unheard of in California cross country

circles: Beat Bei in the state final.

Speaking of unheard of, the Costa Mesa High boys basketball schedule

includes a Jan. 27 date in the Nike Extravaganza at Long Beach State’s

Pyramid.

Coach Bob Serven’s Mustangs will meet St. John Bosco at 8:30 a.m. (set

your alarm clocks, Mustang fans). The early start gives Mesa little more

than 12 hours to recover from its Jan. 26 Pacific Coast League home clash

with cross-town rival Estancia.

“The kids won’t mind getting up early,” Serven said. “They’re very

excited about it. I think it speaks to the improvement the program has

made in one year and that’s a reflection on the players. Hopefully, we’ll

be contending for a league title and this will help us prepare for the

playoffs.”

Estancia High boys basketball, under first-year head man Chris Sorce,

will face a familiar face in its preseason scrimmage. The Eagles will

meet Edison, coached by Rich Boyce, who resigned as Estancia coach last

spring to accept a significant pay raise as coach of the Sunset League

Chargers.

After three weeks of the football season, upcoming league races are

beginning to take shape.

If I had to pick favorites at this point, I’d go with University in

the PCL and Irvine, ahead of Newport Harbor and Laguna Hills, in the Sea

View.

Mike Freeman, a former football star at Newport Harbor (Class of 1995)

and a first-year assistant coach at CdM, has had better weekends.

After the Sea Kings fell to his alma mater Friday, 35-7, he drove to

Fresno to see his former collegiate team, Cal, fall to the Bulldogs,

17-3.