LJ xc: Crawford Invitational

Viking girls run 3-4-5-6 (top of hill) midway through
the first Crawford Invitational on a riidge
around the Chollas baseball field.
(Photos by Ed Piper)
 

By Ed Piper

It isn't often that you see La Jolla High being the prominent contingent at a sports event. At track events, you often see the Cathedral Catholic awning, St. Augustine, La Costa Canyon, the bigger athletic schools. The same at summer league 7-on-7 football. Meanwhile, the Viking athletes may be the ones sitting as a group in the direct sun.

But there it was Saturday morning, August 25: the white tent with red letters announcing "La Jolla Viking Cross Country" near the fence bordering the baseball field at Chollas Park North at 7:15 a.m., the only one in view other than the officials' set-up at the finish line for the first Crawford Invitational, hosted by third-year Colts coach Tlaloc Venancio.

Coach Mandy Benham's Vikings, who have been running in "official" practice runs together the past three weeks at DeAnza Cove and Fanuel Park, sent out most of the 28 boys and 13 girls who indicated their availability and desire to run in the small event to the coaches at practice Friday.

The size of the group, which included girls running well in the third, fourth, fifth, and six positions race midway through the course adjacent to and around Chollas Lake, dwarfed tiny Mission Bay, which had seven runners, and even host Crawford, which was represented by 10 boys and one girl.

Nine Viking runners just before the starter's pistol
of the girls' 5,000-meter (3.2 miles) race.

And the roster for La Jolla would have been four or five more, according to new assistant coach Adam Kittlaus, except for the concurrent SAT test being administered elsewhere in the county the same morning. The SAT is taken the first time usually by juniors, but Kittlaus said a couple of seniors were doing retakes to complete other parts of the standardized test, or to improve their initial scores.

Nader Ali, 18, a senior at Crawford, jumped out to a lead from the start of the boys' 8 a.m. race and was seen striding freely with the same lead, despite an overall early quick pace, as the boys made their way along the ridge of a hill high above the Chollas baseball field.

The former refugee from South Sudan, whose family fled persecution to Egypt when he was an infant, crossed the narrow finish line area in just over 17 minutes. The CIF San Diego Section Division 4 champ last year, Ali strode across the finish line in a leading time of 17:23.88, 26 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher.

In fact, among the six teams competing in the first-time invitational--Venancio said, "We just want to learn how to run a meet," getting lots of help from friends and mentors at Hoover High, including Chris Brewster, who was his head coach when Tlaloc served as an assistant there for five years--the Vikings and Colts provide quite a contrast.

Many LJHS students have hailed from foreign countries and varied cultures, including England (star wrestler Elliot Austin), Germany (football kicker and soccer player Nick Goehler), Spain (soccer player Pablo Jativa), Brazil and Italy (soccer player Marco Furlanis' parents), and others.

The 25 LJHS boys just before their start Saturday.

Meanwhile, Venancio himself came over the border from Mexico without documents years ago. Before Saturday's meet, in comments to a reporter, he ticked off the following countries for his present runners: Uganda, Tanzania, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mexico, as well as Sudan.

He introduced his wife, a fair-haired Anglo from the United States, who had their two children in tow to watch daddy's running event.

After watching the boys' race, then part of the girls' contest, for which the starting gun went off 45 minutes later, Kittlaus commented, "They need to widen the last part of the race. It's too narrow. And when you're running, that's what you do--go for it. Runners are not going to hold back near the finish, and with the narrow area (pointing toward the end of the course)...(there could be collisions)."

The Crawford meet signaled an extra early start to the fall season. The next big meet, which the Viking runners are scheduled to compete in, doesn't come for two more weeks at the Bronco Roundup, hosted by Rancho Bernardo High, Sept. 8.

Benham told her runners Friday before their daily practice run that she planned to keep everyone who went out for the team. That's a large number, nearing 60 or more. But she reminded them that the "privilege" of running with "La Jolla" across their chests comes with responsibilities: "You need to behave well. You can't run with ear buds, for your own safety, to keep a good pace, and to interact with your teammates. Also, the language needs to be good. And don't run across people's yards or use their hose to get a drink, unless they offer it." One girl said, "But they offered us water." The head coach replied, "In that case, that's different."

"I don't want to get a call from the athletic director that you were heard by people in the community using bad language or misbehaving."

"And no walking. If you aren't here to run, you're just here to goof off, then go somewhere else and do something else you enjoy."

"If there are those who don't keep to these standards, then I will get rid of some people."

The group of students, including incoming freshmen who haven't yet begun classes in high school, seemed attentive and willing to take their coach's words to heart as she sent them off in different groups after stretching--three miles for those competing the next day in the invitational, longer for a newbie, and so forth.