Newport teams advance to CIF

Chris Yemma

What came as no surprise in Friday’s Sea View League cross country

championships was Newport Harbor High No. 1 girl runner Whitney Blue

smoking the competition and placing first overall.

Blue entered the finals as the favorite, and followed through on

her expectations, running the three-mile course at Irvine Park in 17

minutes, 7 seconds -- the same time she marked at the Orange County

championships on the same course earlier this season.

But the main goal for both the Newport girls and boys was to

qualify for the CIF Southern Section preliminaries Nov. 13 at Mt. San

Antonio College. And Friday, both teams did just that ... barely.

The girls needed a third-place finish or better to continue on to

Mt. SAC, while the boys also needed to finish third, or have

Woodbridge finish third to even out the standings.

Both teams eked it out to continue their seasons, as the Newport

girls finished third, the Woodbridge boys third and the Newport boys

fourth.

“We needed to finish in the top three,” Newport boys coach Nowell

Kay said. “But we qualified thanks to Foothill beating Woodbridge. We

could have taken care of our own business, though.”

With Foothill finishing ahead of Woodbridge in Friday’s meet, the

Newport boys finished third in the league standings, while the girls

also finished third.

“Individual results are nice,” Tweit said. “But our No. 1 goal is

to keep this team going and qualify.”

Blue’s 17:07 was 39 seconds faster than second-place finisher

Jesse Babcock from Woodbridge. Lauren Maddox finished second for the

Sailors and fourth overall in 17:55. Taylor Bryson (17th in 19:03),

Courtney Marshall (27th in 19:37) and Caitlin Mai (32nd in 20:06)

were the rest of the five Newport scorers.

Foothill finished first with 50 points, Woodbridge was second with

60 and Newport Harbor had 78 points.

On the boys side, Laguna Hills finished first with 45 points.

Foothill and Woodbridge both finished with 80 points, but Foothill’s

team time was faster, putting them in second, and Newport finished

with 84 points in fourth.

Senior Martin Bernard finished first for Newport and seventh

overall in 15:43. Kenny Rakestraw (13th in 15:54), Nick St. Andre

(14th in 15:56), Wesley Urtusuastegui (20th in 16:18) and Cameron

MacLaren (30th in 16:46) were the top five Sailor runners.

“I did all right, it was a pretty good race,” Bernard said. “This

was the biggest meet this season and the hardest for our team.”

For Blue, finishing first has become routine. This season she has

finished first in numerous league meets and the Orange County

championships Oct. 16 against 102 runners from 15 schools. And she

placed fourth at the Mt. SAC invitational Oct. 23 against runners

from all over the state.

Entering Friday’s race, Tweit said he expected Blue to win the

race, saying she was the league favorite. After Blue crossed the

finish line, followed shortly by Maddox, both teammates were pleased

with themselves.

“I wanted to break 17 minutes, but I came close,” Blue said.

Said Maddox: “This was one of the most important meets. I pushed

myself as hard as I could and I’m glad I broke 18 [minutes].”

And about five minutes after all the girls runners had finished,

and the results were posted, a wave of emotion swept through the

girls team.

“This is really big,” Maddox said. “We only had five runners

going, and we pulled through.”