La Cañada cross-country shines again at Rio Hondo League finals
SAN MARINO – Consistency and championships were the theme and final results for the La Cañada High cross-country program at Thursday afternoon’s Rio Hondo League championships at Lacy Park.
For a fourth straight season, the Spartans girls captured a league title, while the boys qualified for the CIF Southern Section postseason by finishing runner-up for the second consecutive year.
Freshman sensation Kayley Bond became her school’s sixth consecutive league champion by winning the individual title in 18 minutes, 6.24 seconds.
The mark is the third-fastest time by a La Cañada runner over the past five years at Lacy Park, trailing only Anna Frederich (17:56, 2013) and Katie Scoville (18:03, 2015).
Bond is also the league’s first freshman champion since Scoville won the title in 2014.
“We definitely wanted to win this race, especially for the couple of seniors that we had on the team,” Bond said. “Our goal this year has been to go to state and we have to keep going.”
As for winning the individual league title?
“I’m pretty excited,” Bond said. “It’s cool.”
In the team competition, CIF Southern Section Division IV No. 6-ranked La Cañada crossed its scoring five through the first 10 slots to finish with 22 points and easily defeat Division III No. 13 South Pasadena, 22-63.
With Bond’s victory, La Cañada now boasts three league champions on the same squad.
Former two-time winner Scoville (2014 and 2015) is rounding back into form and took second in 18:26.43.
La Cañada sophomore Sarah Auther was fourth (18:48.12), junior and 2016 champion Adena DiPaolo earned sixth (18:54.80) and freshman Ellaney Matarese placed ninth (19:22.23) to finish the scoring.
With the victory, La Cañada takes a small break before heading to the CIF Southern Section preliminaries in Riverside on Nov. 11.
“This team is showing that it’s ready for the postseason,” La Cañada girls’ coach Nick LaCapria said. “They’re showing that they’re ready to run in the top level. When you have Kayley and now Katie and Adena running together, we’re excited about the future.”
As for the boys, their comeback after a bumpy league start was completed as the Spartans finished second for a second straight year to South Pasadena, 24-55.
Senior Ryan Van Slooten paced La Cañada in his league swansong by placing fourth in a personal-record time of 16:29.67.
“It was nice to get some cool weather, but this is still a tiring course,” said Van Slooten, who finished fourth last season in 16:58. “I was expecting to a lot better, actually. The cool weather kind of freezes up your arms and it slowed me down a little bit.”
Spartans junior Owen Serricchio was a few seconds off Van Slooten’s pace and took sixth in 16:32.02.
La Cañada’s other scorers were Sheldon Watanabe (14th, 17:24.91), Lucas Echternach (15th, 17:25.54) and Ryan Fitzgerald (16th, 17:26).
The squad’s finish was impressive given the team was running with injured senior Shaan Sandhu.
The Spartans stumbled out of the gate under first-year coach Andy DiConti, who took over for LaCapria, and finished third at the league’s first meet, but have now matched last year’s squad.
“We were second in league in the second league race, so it’s just a matter of them believing in what they can do,” DiConti said. “It all comes down to consistent training. I always knew they had it in them.”
South Pasadena’s Oliver Chang won the league title in 16:03.16.
Twitter: @campadresports
