CIF State Cross-Country Championships: Sage girls are ninth in state in Division 5

FRESNO — It was a season of firsts for Emma Dickerson and the other freshmen on the Sage Hill School girls’ cross country team.

They helped Sage Hill make it to the CIF State Cross-Country Championships for the first time in seven years. And, on Saturday morning, they got a chance to run on their first 5,000-meter course.

The state meet course at Woodward Park is indeed a 5K, or 3.11 miles, slightly longer than a typical cross-country race. That did not seem to bother Dickerson.

Her strong finishing kick helped her earn a 12th-place individual finish in Division 5, narrowly missing out on a top-10 finish and a medal. Sage Hill as a team finished ninth in the state, the second-best finish in program history.

Corona del Mar’s girls, paced by junior Raquel Powers, finished 13th in Division 3 at the 29th annual meet.

Sage Hill matched its ninth-place state ranking coming into the meet by PrepCalTrack.com. Dickerson led the way, finishing in 19 minutes, 16 seconds, which is the second-fastest time ever run by a Sage Hill girl at state. Cait Williamson ran a 19:07 in 2007.

“I liked the course,” Dickerson said. “It wasn’t super-uphill … it didn’t feel that much longer [than a three-mile course]. We just came to show that we deserved to be here.”

Junior Julia Lowe (44th, 20:21), freshman Maya Jaffe (69th, 20:53), sophomore Ashton Carroll (91st, 21:20) and freshman Olivia Lowe (111th, 21:46) also scored for the Lightning, who did not have a senior in their top seven. Miller said that though Sage Hill couldn’t quite top its seventh-place state finish from 2006, this year’s team had the fastest Lightning team time at the state meet (1:43:38) in program history.

Dickerson certainly picked up the pace after she was 39th individually at the mile mark and 23rd at 2.05 miles.

“At the end of the first mile, Coach Miller was like, ‘You’re in 40th’ or something,” Dickerson said. “I knew I needed to move up. I kept pushing, and once I got to the second mile, a lot of girls started to slow down. I took advantage of that.”

Last year it was Julia Lowe who made it to state by herself. This year, she had a team of talented underclassmen with her. Flintridge Prep ended up winning the Division 5 state title for both boys and girls, while Sonoma Academy sophomore Rylee Bowen won her second straight Division 5 girls’ individual title in 18:12.

“We had run with all the other teams before, so we kind of recognized them,” Julia Lowe said. “We didn’t have any specific, ‘Gotta beat this team or this team.’ We just tried to go out and do our best, and I think we did that pretty well.”

After the race, Miller took his girls to watch the Division 5 awards ceremony to, as he said, “plant some seeds” for next year.

“They’ll see some teams up there that we’ll be battling the next few years,” Miller said. “We’re definitely happy. I think there’s maybe always hindsight a little bit, you could have caught a few more places or whatever. But a lot of it is just about getting a good experience here today.”

Jaffe said the Lightning, who finished a program-best third last weekend at the CIF Southern Section Division 5 finals at Mt. San Antonio College, indeed are excited about the future.

“Now, since we’ve done 10 races, we know how it is,” she said of the freshman class. “Now we can work on improving what we need to do for each mile, how our times need to be.”

The Lightning enjoyed cool but not too cold weather for their race at 10:40 a.m. The same was not true for CdM’s girls, who ran in the first race of the day at 8:30 a.m. in about 40-degree temperatures.

Powers was happy with her race, as she said she tried to stay with Esperanza’s Shannon McKellar, who placed 15th, for much of the race. Powers placed 22nd individually in 18:26, 46 seconds faster than she ran last year at state. But the cold weather pleased her less.

“I would reach for my nose and I couldn’t feel it,” Powers said. “And I still can’t feel my toes. I was expecting to take my gloves off at the two-mile [mark] but I didn’t want to, because I was still so cold. My older sister Melanie, when she ran state, she had these arm sleeves. I brought one of them, but I forgot the other one at home. I was so excited to wear them, but I forgot one, so I had to live without them.”

The Sea Kings will have to live with their 13th-place finish in Division 3 as well, after finishing ninth last year. Senior Lilly Schmidt went out fast for the first mile and finished 42nd individually, in 18:51. Senior Katie Correnty moved up to third on the team and 100th overall, in 19:52, followed by senior Jacqueline Choe in 101st at 19:55.

“I took the first mile conservative, and then I kind of kept Jackie in front of me,” Correnty said. “She helped me pace the whole rest of it. The last 400, I just said, ‘This is my last race, I’ve just got to give it my all’ … Something just hit me and I just went with it. I’ve never had a kick this big at the end.”

Freshman Gigi Lee was the fifth and final scorer in 132nd in 20:30, while junior Bella Gerken (134th, 20:31) and senior Hannah Crane (169th, 21:11) also competed. Crane is typically CdM’s fourth runner, but CdM Coach Bill Sumner said she ran Saturday with an upset stomach.

“Lilly did well and ‘Rock’ did well, but for us to have any impact, four seniors have to show up,” Sumner said. “Gigi’s a freshman, so I don’t like to put a lot of pressure on her. And this is Bella’s first year running, so I don’t like to put a lot of pressure on her … But as a group they had a great year. I think our big race was last week [finishing fifth in CIF Southern Section Division 3 at Mt. SAC]. All four of our seniors came through last week. We had a good year, and we’re here.”

Aptos captured the Division 3 girls team title, edging second-place La Costa, while Stefani Gaskell of Sultana was the individual champion in 17:30.

Schmidt, the co-captain who has been running well at the end of the season, said that she was disappointed that CdM couldn’t secure a top-10 finish at state. Still, she will remember being part of this senior class, which featured four of CdM’s top five runners this season.

“[Not finishing top 10] hurts, but knowing that we all gave it our best with what we had helps a little,” Schmidt said. “We’re unbreakable. We’re together forever, and I think the team will really miss us next year, but they’ll bring it back to state hopefully.”