Palisades High School head coach Bob Macias was in the process of sending 70 members of his cross-county teams off on different runs around the Palisades on Sept. 14, when he spoke to the News.
Some of the runners were headed up Bienveneda, others to Will Rogers. The last group took off towards the beach with plans to loop back up Chautauqua and into town.
“We’ve been practicing on hills this year,” Macias said—and maybe that has already paid off.
The Dolphins competed in the Seaside Cross Country Invitational in Ventura on September 9, and the boys finished second overall in a field of 40 teams and the girls placed 16th overall.
“We certainly did well,” Macias said.“We opened up some eyes at Seaside.”
Brent Smith placed third in the sophomore race with a time of 15:31.5 on the three-mile course against 329 runners. Ben Hamer took first in the junior race with the second-fastest time of the meet (14:52.3) and teammate Jake Greanias was 12th (15:36.8) among 262 runners. Jakob Pollack was sixth in the senior division (15:01.3) with 201 runners. The top freshman runner was Alec Stewart (31 out of 298).
On the girls side, freshman Sarah Bentley was 10th out of 215 with a time of 19:22.7. The fastest sophomore was Brittany Darrow (25 out of 225). Junior Kimia Samandi was ninth (18:55.9) in a field of 196. Senior Shannon Lee was 37th (19:59).
“Our depth is where we are strong on our boys team,” said Macias, who also praised his girls team.
He and Coach Paul Foxson, who runs the track program at Paul Revere Middle School, discuss runners. “We have a good core of freshman boys and girls this year,” Macias said.
This past weekend, the Dolphins participated in the Woodbridge Invitational (no results by presstime), and on Sept. 24 they will compete in an invitational meet at Griffith Park. The first league meet is Oct. 6 against Fairfax at Kenneth Hahn Park.
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