Laguna Beach girls’ cross-country showing marked improvement

Missing the Orange County Championships is not the traditional route taken by county cross-country teams hoping for a deep run in November.

Laguna Beach High took the road less traveled, opting for an additional week of training. After the results posted by the Breakers this past weekend, it is hard to question their methods.

In winning the small schools varsity race at the Riverside Invitational, the Laguna Beach girls’ team proved to be ahead of schedule with the postseason fast approaching.

The Breakers ran 1 hour 40 minutes 37.8 seconds as a team, which bested the 1:41:05 the school ran in last year’s CIF Southern Section Division 4 preliminaries. Laguna Beach did so without the services of three of its starters — Evie Cant, Hannah Konkel and Sidney Schaefgen.

Jessie Rose paced the Breakers, taking third in 19:03.7, Kaitlin Ryan (sixth, 20:10.9), Grace LaMontagne (10^th, 20:20), Sierra Read (12^th, 20:27.5) and Angelina Dyrnaes (13^th, 20:35.7) rounded out the scoring quintet.

Seven teams from each division in the section finals make the cut for the state meet. Covina was the last team to get in from Division 4 in 2016, posting a team time of 1:34:19.

The Laguna Beach girls’ team is ranked fourth in Division 4, a standing that may reflect the variables responsible for the six-minute gap from last year’s state-qualifying times. Teams have yet to hit their peak, and cooler weather three weeks down the road should mean faster times.

Breakers girls’ coach Steve Lalim figures that the return of Cant (calf), the team’s ace, would knock two minutes from the team time without any improvement from the other runners.

“She had some calf pain, so we’ve just been very cautious because we know that the end of the year is going to boom, boom, boom, boom,” Lalim said. “Hopefully, four consecutive races [league finals, CIF prelims, CIF finals and state].”

The Laguna Beach boys’ and girls’ teams have clinched their berths into the section prelims, courtesy of a new rule. Any team that appears in two of the final four weekly rankings heading into CIF gets to compete, regardless of whether it claims one of its league’s allotted spots.

“We will probably rest some people, but we like to set good habits, so we want to go in and really do our best to win,” Lalim said of the opportunity to nurse his team to full health.

The Orange Coast League Finals will be held at Centennial Park in Santa Ana on Monday.

Ocean View’s Edwin Montes (fourth, 15:24) and David Brito (seventh, 15:36) led the Seahawks to a fourth-place showing in the large schools varsity race.

Huntington Beach’s Lars Mitchel was an individual standout, placing ninth in 15:38.

Mt. SAC Invitational

Sage Hill’s girls fared well in the Mt. SAC Invitational, as the Lightning finished second among Division 5 schools in the Division 4 and 5 combined sweepstakes.

Senior transfer Brooklyn Button finished third, matching her career-best time of 18:34 in her first run on the famed course, a feat that impressed her coach, Nate Miller.

Miller said that Mt. SAC throws wrinkles at competitors that can be tough for first-time runners of the 2.93-mile course.

“Dealing with the hills, the up and down running,” Miller answered quickly when asked what the greatest challenge of the course is to its newcomers. He then added, “The first mile is a little bit of a trap for first-timers because it’s really flat [before the first hill, Switchbacks].”

CdM’s girls took fifth in the Division 3 sweepstakes, behind sub-19-minute times from Annabelle Boudreau (12^th, 18:53) and Gigi Lee (14^th, 18:58).

Local boys’ cross-country teams in CIF polls

Division 3: Ocean View (sixth), CdM (10th)

Division 4: Laguna Beach (sixth)

Local girls’ cross-country teams in CIF polls

Division 1: Fountain Valley (ninth)

Division 3: Corona del Mar (seventh)

Division 4: Laguna Beach (fourth)

Division 5: Sage Hill (third)

Andrew.Turner@latimes.com

Twitter: @ProfessorTurner