Going back

Moving on up, north that is.

That’s what the Estancia High boys and the Corona del Mar High

girls cross country teams, as well as the Eagles’ Diana Rosete, are

saying after they all qualified for the State Meet Saturday at

Fresno’s Woodward Park.

Both the Eagle boys and CdM girls finished fourth at Saturday’s

CIF Southern Section Division III Finals at Mt. San Antonio College.

Rosete finished second in the girls Division III race (18:22), 22

seconds behind San Luis Obispo High’s Jenna Kingma.

The CdM girls advance to the State Meet for the 16th consecutive year while the Eagle boys move on to State for the sixth straight

time.

“The girls raced pretty well,” said CdM Coach Bill Sumner. “We

came into this thing with an outside shot at winning it, but St.

Joseph’s surprised us.”

St. Joseph’s won the girls Division III race with 57 points while

CdM scored 147.

“Diana stayed with Christina Jimenez of Granada Hills and overtook

her,” said Estancia Coach Charlie Appell about Rosete beating out

third-place finisher Jimenez.

Senior Becky Cummins led all Corona runners with 19:40 for 21st

place followed by Ahlia Kattan (28th, 19:51), Anne St. Geme (36th,

20:00), Taryn Kawata (38th, 20:01), Melissa Swigert (47th, 20:13),

Jen Logan (63rd, 20:50) and Keelan Cuyler (67th, 20:55).

“Becky had a good day and Melissa ran faster than she did last

week,” Sumner said.

Estancia’s boys finished with 134 points as Barstow won the

Division III race with 35 points.

Scoring for the Eagles were senior Humberto Rojas (2nd, 15:21),

Alex Cahuantzi (20th, 16:24), Panfilo Elias (37th, 16:37), Abel

Flores (49th, 16:48), Aaron Van Geem (55th, 16:55), Francisco Morales

(65th, 17:11) and Sean Zich (91st, 18;08).

Eagles’ Coach Charlie Appell said his boys ran “OK.” He was

pleased with efforts of the group, especially Rojas, Cahuantzi, Elias

and Flores.

“Rojas was happy with his time and Elias ran for a (personal

record),” Appell said. “Abel Flores ran very well as well.”

Van Geem, the Eagles usual third runner, ran with an internal

muscle injury Saturday, but is expected to race next week in Fresno,

Appell said.

“Van Geem normally would have gotten third but that’s no excuse,”

Appell said. “Lompoc ran a very good race and so did Santa

Margarita.”

Santa Margarita took second and Lompoc finished third to also

advance to the state finals.

Sumner’s boys team came in 11th with a 1:24.31 team time, 19

seconds behind seventh-place Diamond Bar, which captured the final

team berth.

“There were so many bodies in that area that it could have been

anybody’s,” Sumner said. “It was a lot closer than the scores

indicate.”

Kevin Artz led the Sea Kings with a personal-best 16:28 to finish

25th followed by freshman Jack Turner’s 54th-place spot at 16:54.

In his first varsity race, CdM sophomore Julian Salinas clocked a

16:56 for 57th place, followed by Blake Dillion (62nd, 17:05), Bo

Weidner (63rd, 17:08), Danny Quinlan (67th, 17:12) and J. C. Turner

(82nd, 17:37).

“That was impressive,” said Sumner about Salinas’ race.

Weidner scored 63 points as CdM’s fifth runner while Diamond Bar’s

fifth runner notched 70 points.

As Sumner put it, “We’re going to the big dance as they call it.”