Lady Acorns have decent finish in final league meet Tuesday
SAN JOSE — It was the last Santa Teresa Division meet of the season, and Live Oak coach Tom Sumpter still didn’t know what to expect from his girls cross country team.
It’s not like Sumpter hasn’t kept close tabs on his prized Lady Acorns. Tuesday’s competition against Overfelt and Westmont was only the third league meet they have competed in this fall. Live Oak was originally scheduled to race Santa Teresa meets, but extreme — and varying — weather led to the postponement of the opening two; the first because of heat, the second because of rain.
As luck would have it, runners battled harsh conditions again Tuesday at the 2.75-mile course on Montgomery Hill. This time, it was imposing wind.
“It’s difficult to tell how far along we are. It’s been kind of a strange year,” Sumpter said.
Weather is just the start. The Acorns had to forfeit another meet because too many of them were sick. Tuesday marked the first league meet in which Live Oak’s top-five runners were healthy — at least at the start. Pauline Olsen, one of the team’s senior anchors, battled cramps on the way to a middling finish in 22 minutes, 53 seconds.
“That was very unusual,” she said. “I never cramp up. But today, I don’t know what happened. I was in pain. I focused on that instead of the wind.”
The Acorns managed to beat Overfelt, but their times were “all over the place,” Sumpter said. While freshmen Ashlynn Adair and Sabrina Rice struggled with the wind, junior Chelsie Faulk matched her personal-best time of 21:03. Faulk was three seconds behind senior teammate Renee Dominguez.
“The wind makes it a lot harder,” said Rice, who finished third for Live Oak in 21:20.
“I felt like I was moving sideways at one point,” Adair (23:52) added.
Although less-than stellar, Tuesday’s performance mattered little for the Acorns. Their season-long target meet is Monday’s Blossom Valley Athletic League Finals at Crystal Springs, where they will try to fulfill their goal of making the cut once again for the Nov. 14 Central Coast Section Championship meet.
I feel like I’m in good shape,” Faulk said. “But we know we have a lot of work to do to get where we need to be.”
The top eight teams and top individual finishers advance from BVALs. The Acorns placed seventh at last year’s meet, which was held during an infamous rain storm.
“You never know what you’re going to get,” Sumpter said. “I think we have a chance of making CCS, but I don’t know. We’re not quite as fast as we need to be.”
In Tuesday’s boys meet at Montgomery Hill, Live Oak’s Adam Groen and Eddie Plascencia clocked 18:23 and 20:01, respectively. They were the only two runners for the Acorns, who will likely move down to the West Valley Division for 2010.
NOTES: The print edition and a previous posting of this story stated the top eight teams at BVALs earn berths in CCS. This year, the top 12 advanced. Also, the times listed in this article are unofficial.
