Girls cross country: Cool hand Sumner

Steve Virgen

WALNUT - If this were a poker game Corona del Mar High girls cross

country coach Bill Sumner would have the upper hand. He wore the ultimate

poker face after his girls grabbed lead honors in Division III of the CIF

Southern Section Preliminaries at Mt. San Antonio College Saturday.

While most tabbed CdM’s finish as a statement, Sumner said he actually

experimented with the meet. And he gambled.

He told his top runner, senior Julie Allen, to jump out to a quick

pace. She completed the first mile in 5:11 and finished with the top time

in 17:12. CdM junior Becky Cummins followed in second place in 18:51.

“Next week, we can’t gamble,” Sumner said. “We’re new to Division III.

We’re the little puppy Chihuahua and we have to be aware of that. And I

wanted to find out what’s going on.”

And his response to Allen’s time?

“If you don’t believe she can go under 17 (minutes) then I really

screwed up. I just let a 17:12 out there for nothing.”

Sumner told Allen to concentrate on her hill-work and to ease up on

the downhill. The strategy might have backfired because of the rigorous

pace, but Allen was her usual upbeat self after the race. As for Cummins’

second-place finish, there’s only more to expect from these Sea Kings

next week. Or is there?

“I don’t want to make a statement,” Sumner in response to a reporter’s

question. “This wasn’t our 100% race today. I was surprised how well we

did.”

CdM sophomore Ahlia Kattan came in seventh in 20:01, to further

confuse the competition if the Sea Kings were going all out.

Freshman Melissa Swigert marched through later in 16th in 20:16.9, and

sophomore Taryn Kawata came in 20th in 20:21. Senior Katherine Morse

rounded out the performance, coming in 40th at 21:18.

Meanwhile, Estancia’s only runner, Diana Rosete, paced herself through

the course and wound up fourth in a different heat of Division III. Her

time of 19:08.6 was just behind San Luis Obispo’s Jenna Kingma (19:08.4).

She seemed to ease up at the end of the race, perhaps realizing she had

already qualified for Saturday’s finals.

Rosete has been steady all season, as in her most recent fourth-place

showing in the Pacific Coast League finals. Her coach, Charlie Appell,

expects Rosete to peak in Saturday’s final.

In Division II, Newport Harbor, which has been enduring a season of

inexperience, did not advance to the finals. But Coach Eric Tweit was

optimistic of the future, especially with a character like sophomore Lisa

Evans. She spilled onto the course in the first mile. Evans tried to pass

up two girls, but accidentally tripped and scraped skin off her elbow and

the fall also left red scratch-scars on her right thigh. However, Evans

immediately rose to her feet and kept on running to finish in 36th in

19:58.

The Sailors were led by sophomore Lauren Paul, who was 14th in 19:18.

“We’ve had a lot of improvement,” Tweit said of the season. “The good

thing is that they’re all young and the nature of the thing is that

they’ve got to get better. Today, they all ran well.”