Morgan Hill – Facing some of the best high school runners in the
West, the Sobrato cross-country team competed in the 34th Stanford
Invitational Saturday amongst more than 200 high schools
representative of 10 states.
Morgan Hill – Facing some of the best high school runners in the West, the Sobrato cross-country team competed in the 34th Stanford Invitational Saturday amongst more than 200 high schools representative of 10 states.
As a team the Sobrato girls finished 14th out of roughly 50 teams with a combined time of 105:55.00 and the Sobrato boys finished the race in 25th place out roughly 40 teams with a combined time of 88:37.00.
Junior Lance Wolfsmith had an incredible performance, rising to the occasion of this very high pressure meet.
Competing against 304 varsity runners, Lance took third in division two, finishing the 5K invitational in 15:44.00.
“The atmosphere is really cool when it comes to the actual event,” Lance said. “But I take every race with a different mindset and always have a different goal.”
Lance’s goal at Stanford was to win, which he almost did finishing only 10 seconds behind winner Bryan Tibaduiza of Galena High School in Reno, Nev.
“Everyone was playing their cards a different way, but I was right with the No.1 and 2 up until the last mile,” Lance said. “Heck even the NO. 4 had a chance to win.”
Palo Alto’s sophomore standout Phillip MacQuity finished in second, slightly ahead of Lance, with a time of 15:41.00.
Last season, as a freshman, MacQuity became the two-mile Central Coast Section champion.
“I raced shoulder to shoulder with him almost the entire race and I feel like I can take him at CCS and state,” Lance said of racing MacQuity. “Knowing that I can beat him means that if I don’t, I did something wrong.”
Lance’s finishing time placed him fourth among all CCS competitors.
“Stanford is a race that makes you go beyond yourself,” he said.
Lance’s time also placed him 19th among the 1,320 male varsity runners that competed in the famed event.
For sophomore Alan Rios, a time of 17:12 was not adequate.
“It’s a really fast course, and (the race) didn’t quite go as I was hoping,” Rios said. “It’s not like other races where you have people to chase … there are so many guys that you lose track of where you are.”
Rios said the mental factor of racing in such a huge event got to him.
“I didn’t really psych myself up for it,” he said. “I don’t think I was mentally prepared and I don’t think I had enough excitement to run a race like that.”
On the girls side senior Abhi Deveraj and junior Alexa Seda finished in 43rd and 47th places with times of 20:20.00 and 20:24.00, respectively.
This season is Seda’s first with the cross-country team, and she too was slightly overwhelmed with the magnitude of the event.
“Getting into it mentally was probably the hardest part because I’m not used to having so many girls to compete against,” Seda said. “Coach has been having us focus on Stanford, and we had a team dinner the night before the event, but I feel like the race still got to all of us.”
Sobrato head coach Dave Wolfsmith said his team built up for the Stanford Invitational for a week prior.
“I was focusing on building their confidence, reminding them to trust their fitness levels and training,” Dave said. “And I thought we did a phenomenal job.”
Almost a week after the event, Dave said he is still using the good and bad things about his teams performance at Stanford to set examples.
“I felt that we could have done better, but this was definitely a breakthrough for us,” Dave said. “This is just one step towards our goal of taking league.”
