Boys and girls cross country: Sage Hill taking first steps

Barry Faulkner

NEWPORT COAST - To borrow a phrase from the running world, the boys

and girls cross country teams from Sage Hill will use their first varsity

season for base training.

With only two boys returning among his top five and only one girl in

the program who has run competitively before at any level, Coach Nate

Miller’s Lightning don’t figure to take the Academy League by storm.

Still, both squads used their first offseason training regimen to

prepare themselves to get the most out of their ability, as they build

experience and the endurance most other varsity runners already take to

the trails.

The inaugural seasons for the boys and girls last year, on the junior

varsity level, included participating as an independent entity in some

Academy League meets.

This season, the schedule includes four league tri-meets, league

finals, as well as some invitationals, including Saturday’s Laguna Hills

Invitational.

Sage Hill will use Mason Park in Irvine as its home course and it will

host one league tri-meet, Oct. 25.

The boys team will be led by freshman Michael Vogue, according to

Miller, a former Pomona College cross country runner who coached eight

seasons of cross country at the Lake Forest Academy outside Chicago

before coming to Sage Hill.

“From training runs and speed workouts, (Vogue) is clearly our top

runner,” Miller said. “The other guys are pretty even, but Michael should

be about a minute ahead.”

The rest of the pack includes probable scorers Blake Johnson, Chris

Chiboucas, Peter Kim and Matt Sanford.

Johnson and Sanford are returning sophomores, while Kim is a freshman

and Chiboucas a sophomore new to the private school.

Miller said freshman Eric LaMotte and sophomore Ian Livingston are

others among the 15 boys in the program before school started Wednesday.

The girls team, which Miller believes should field a fifth runner by

the time the league campaign begins, consists of returning sophomore Alis

Brito, as well as newcomers Breeana Garrett, Sayeh Nodoust and Amy

Kaitlin.

Garrett is a junior transfer from Dana Hills, though she did not

compete with the Dolphins. She has been the front-runner in workouts thus

far.

Nodoust (pronounced no-dust, a fitting name for a cross country

runner) is a sophomore newcomer, while Kaitlin is a freshman.

“It’s a new sport to everyone but Alis and even she is in the learning

stages, so we’ll be working on developing a base and learning how to

race,” Miller said. “I imagine there will be a lot of improvement as the

season goes along.”

Sage Hill boys cross country

Michael Vogue Fr.

Blake Johnson So.

Chris Chiboucas So.

Peter Kim Fr.

Matt Sanford So.

Eric LaMotte Fr.

Ian Livingston So.

Coach: Nate Miller

Sage Hill girls cross country

Breeana Garrett Jr.

Alis Brito So.

Sayeh Nodoust So.

Amy Kaitlin Fr.

Coach: Nate Miller