New year, similar results for Flintridge Sacred Heart, St. Francis cross-country

LA CRESCENTA — For the Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy and St. Francis High cross-country programs, Tuesday afternoon’s Mission League opener had a familiar feel despite a new year and new runners.

The Tologs matched their third-place performance for last year’s Mission League finals, while the Golden Knights were also on the outside looking in with a sixth-place showing, this time at the league’s first meet at Crescenta Valley Park on Tuesday afternoon.

“Honestly, we’re going to have to do better than this,” Flintridge Sacred Heart Coach Kirk Nishiyama said. “If you look at the gap between our first and our fifth runner, it was huge.”

Nishiyama was alarmed at how close the Tologs were from being knocked off their third-place perch as Alemany was a worrisome fourth place with 81 points with Flintridge Sacred Heart garnering 78 points.

Both squads trailed Harvard-Westlake (28) and Sherman Oaks Notre Dame (31) and both were ahead of Chaminade (107). Only the top three teams at season’s end will earn automatic berths to the CIF Southern Section prelims.

The last time the Tologs competed in a Mission League race, Nishiyama and his squad witnessed one of the year’s great efforts when senior Kayla Grahn won the league individual crown at Woodley Park on Nov. 5.

Grahn became the team’s first league titlist since 2007 by knocking off Notre Dame’s Mariah Moro.

Fast forward 10 months and Moro took home the first victory in a time of 19 minutes, 49 seconds.

While the Tologs didn’t place a runner in the top five, they still received an admirable effort from Bobbie Byrne, who finished seventh in a mark of 21:41.

“There’s no denying that Kayla is irreplaceable,” Byrne said. “We just don’t have a runner like her on this team, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t all do better as a team.”

Byrne was in 14th place at the half-mile mark before moving up to 11th midway through the race. At the end, the three-sport sophomore (basketball and track and field) beat Harvard-Westlake’s Lauren Jones in a flat sprint over the final 50 yards for seventh.

“I just wanted to keep passing people up,” Byrne said. “I took notice of who I had to pass.”

As Nishiyama noted, the gap between his runners was sizable as Flintridge Sacred Heart’s Kristina Mecolino (23:11) was second for her squad and 18th overall, followed by Samantha Covey (22nd, 23:45), Mia Vega (23rd, 23:56) and Frannie Cross (24th, 24:03).

As for the Golden Knights, coach Pat Donovan is well aware that if his squad wants to advance to the Division IV prelims, St. Francis will need to finish in the top four of the seven-team league.

Unfortunately for Donovan’s crew, they placed sixth with 118 points and were edged by fifth-place Chaminade (111 points). Loyola won the meet with 29 points and was followed by Harvard-Westlake (42), Notre Dame (60) and Alemany (81). Crespi was last with 162 points.

“This is not a good result for us, we obviously need to do a lot better than this,” Donovan said. “We need guys to step and we need to make a serious push or else we’re not going to make it.”

Ryan Hambley led the Golden Knights and placed 23rd in 18:05. While not happy with the result, Hambley did offer a potential reason for his team’s struggles.

“We had just run at Woodbridge on Friday and I don’t think we were ready for this,” Hambley said. “This is a quick turnaround. I think if the meet would have been on Thursday or it would have been run last Tuesday, we would have done much better.”

Tuesday’s meet was a make-up of a meet postponed exactly one week earlier due to rain.

St. Francis’ Matt Fernandez was the only other top-30 placer for the Golden Knights and took 27th in 18:34.

Harvard-Westlake’s Jack Stovitz won the boys’ meet in a time of 16:19.

Both St. Francis and Flintridge Sacred Heart will be back in action Saturday at the Stanford Invitational.