By Ed Piper
Three 9th-grade girls, having never set foot on the La Jolla High campus for classes with distance learning in effect, led a five-way sweep for the Vikings over San Diego High in the schools' long-awaited first cross country meet Friday morning, Feb. 12, held at Serra High.
Coach Mandy Benham's girls, spotlighting new LJHS students Kyra Fisk, Daphne Mayer, and Shannon Cao, scored the maximum 15 points against zero for the Cavers as Fisk led the field by over a minute against her nearest competitor, San Diego's Nina Graner, in 19:40.66.
The course was laid out over Serra's terrain, beginning and ending on the football field below and behind the school campus on what turned out to be a 50-degree morning, not unpleasant for running.
The Vikings' event marked the first official competition the school has taken part in since classes were suspended March 13, 2020, due to the spread of the coronavirus.
Since then, there have been starts and stops, with CIF struggling over scheduling and when and how to meet the California Department of Public Health's restrictions over social contact and number of competitors.
La Jolla's boys, with sophomore Isaac Chu and freshman Elijah Vaz leading the six-runner contingent, fell to the Caver boys, 19-38, in the supremely team nature of the sport. Chu ran the 2.9-mile course in 17:29.56, while Vaz, another newcomer to the Viking program, followed in 17:48.43, good for fifth and sixth place.
Running one-three-six in the girls' race, Mayer recorded a time of 21:20.19 for third place. Cao, also a freshman, timed out in 22:25.66 for sixth place, the Vikings' last runner to count for team points.
The other Viking girls who contributed to the team score included Sasha Backus, a junior, running fourth in 21:41.36; and Hannah Nightingale, a senior finishing her final year in high school with COVID-19 finally appearing to have met its match as the school year begins to wind down, in fifth place in 22:16.24.
On the boys side, San Diego High's Noah Ramos led the field with a time of 16:36.05, over half a minute ahead of his nearest teammate.
Down from Chu and Vaz for the Vikings, landing in eighth place was LJHS sophomore Matthew Nunes (18:05.82) and Christopher Ruff, a freshman (18:11.51).
The meet was the Vikings' 2020 opener in a revised "Season 1" schedule. Tennis, golf, and swimming will start up in the unique COVID situation in the next several weeks. All are sports that afford distance and safety under the CDPH guidelines for the virus.
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