Friday, August 26, 2016

LJ cross country: Preview

By Ed Piper, Jr.

La Jolla cross country coach Mandy Benham says summer training has been going "really well", but she wouldn't venture a guess as to how the girls and boys teams would do until they ran in their first event in the Vaquero Stampede Sat., Aug. 27, in Lakeside.

"On the girls side, we have Rylee Olson, Julia Walton, Ines Robo and Sahra Aalaei coming off a solid track season and they have been training well this summer," said Benham.

As far as the boys, the second-year coach said, "I think Mitchell Morrison, Casper Abbasi, and Cole Wolf, who are returning, should have a good season. Some of the younger guys, Ian Phipps and Alex Kalchev, are looking really strong.

"And we have some new to cross country this year, Raul Jackson and Mason Matalon, who look to be great additions to the team."

Elaborating on her girl runners, Benham said, We have lots of strong freshmen. Leading the group are Greta Fehlan and Riley Saham."

Benham says she gets a lot from coaching the runners. "I really enjoy seeing the kids improve," she said, "no matter what level they are."

After practice Tues., Aug. 23, "A group of three girls said today was great, they really enjoyed the run and they felt like they ran faster than ever. That made my day!"

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