Flintridge Sacred Heart cross-country turns in best effort on Grahn stage
VAN NUYS — Saving her greatest performance for a big stage, Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy’s Kayla Grahn made history at Wednesday afternoon’s Mission League cross-country finals at Woodley Park.
The senior pulled away over the second half of the varsity race and captured a league championship with an impressive time of 18 minutes, 19 seconds on a big day for the Tologs and a season-capper for St. Francis High.
“This is it, this is my senior year,” Grahn said. “It was either I win this now or I die trying. If I was ever going to win a league race it had to be now.”
Grahn was fourth through the first half-mile in a pack with Sherman Oaks Notre Dame’s Mariah Moro and Harvard-Westlake’s twosome of Casey Crosson and Rachel Parker.
Yet, at the ascent up the grassy hill at the midway point of the race, only Grahn and Moro were in contention for the title. It was at that point where Grahn first pulled ahead.
“I never looked back after I got to the midway point,” Grahn said. “I could never really get comfortable, but I started to really build my lead in that last mile.”
Grahn eventually finished 29 seconds ahead of Moro, who took second.
Grahn entered as an underdog to Moro, who had won the previous two league meets at Woodley on Sept. 10 and at Crescenta Valley Park on Oct. 2.
Grahn earned third in the first meet and silver in the second, but didn’t run particularly well at Woodley the first time in finishing with a time of 19:55.89.
“There’s no real difference between today and the first time at Woodley,” said Grahn, who entered with a previous personal-best time at Woodley of 19:34. “I guess I just wanted it more.”
As for the Tologs, they finished third as a team with 66 points and clinched a postseason berth to the CIF Southern Section Division IV preliminaries at Mt. San Antonio College on Nov. 15.
Harvard-Westlake won the team title with 41 points, while Notre Dame was second with 48 points. The top three teams all punched their tickets to Mt. SAC.
After Grahn, the league’s most valuable runner, senior Sarah Vega also earned an All-Mission League first-team honor by placing 11th in 20:05.
Flintridge Sacred Heart’s final scoring trio consisted of Monica Collins (15th, 20:32), Katie Gulick (19th, 21:26) and Bobbie Byrne (20th, 21:40).
“Kayla is our first league champion in a while,” said Flintridge Sacred Heart Coach Kirk Nishiyama, whose last league champion was Erin Hartwig in 2007. “Wonderful effort from her. As for the rest of the team, well, at least we made it to CIF.
“I thought we could potentially catch Notre Dame and we just didn’t get the efforts we needed today after Sarah Vega.”
While Nishiyama and his squad will have another week to correct their issues, the same can’t be said for St. Francis.
The Golden Knights needed to both beat Notre Dame and finish in the top four to advance to CIF and did neither, instead earning fifth with 105 points.
While the position marks a one-spot improvement from last season, Golden Knights Coach Pat Donovan was lukewarm toward the result.
“We wanted to beat Notre Dame and continue racing and it didn’t happen,” Donovan said. “We definitely improved from last year, but our goal all year was to get back to CIF and it didn’t happen, so that’s disappointing.”
Loyola’s Robert Brandt won the individual title in 14:40, while his Cubs were also the team champion with 19 points, ahead of Alemany (67), Harvard-Westlake (76) and Notre Dame (83). The top four boys’ teams earned advancement to Mt. SAC.
Junior Chris Rodriguez paced St. Francis by taking 13th in 16:25.
“I’m proud that I’m running my best race at the end of the season,” Rodriguez said. “But we didn’t run our best as a team.”
Senior Adam Lyons, who finished 17th in 16:34, was the only other Golden Knight to place in the top 20.
St. Francis’ next three scoring placers were Ben Grace (22nd, 17:05), Ryan Hambley (24th, 17:10) and Bowen Waugh (29th, 17:38).