Cross-County Roundup : Dana Hills Takes a Gamble but Stills Wins : Boys’ Coach Gives His Top Runner a Rest; Dolphin Girls Also Come in First

Dana Hills High School Coach Tim Butler took a chance Thursday at the South Coast League cross-country finals in Irvine Park and got away with it.

Butler decided to rest his top runner, junior Fermin Segura, because of a knee injury, yet the Dolphins still were able to win the boys’ final.

Dana Hills, ranked first in the county and third in the Southern Section 4-A division, had 45 points; Mission Viejo (49) was second, Capistrano Valley (51) third, San Clemente (102) fourth, Irvine (124) fifth and El Toro (144) sixth.

Kevin Hall of San Clemente won the four-mile race in a time of 15 minutes 35 seconds, Jamie Oman (15:45) of Capistrano Valley was second and Greg Lamp (15:53) of Mission Viejo was third.

The Dolphins, 5-0 during the dual-meet regular season, scored well in the middle spots with junior Javier Barrera (15:56) fourth, sophomore Mike Tansley (15:56) fifth and senior Ryan Lindhlm (16:07) seventh.

The other two Dana Hills runners to score were senior Mark Foder (16:23) in 11th and sophomore Chris Roberts (16:45) in 18th.

“I knew I was taking a chance,” Butler said. “But the coaching staff got together and we decided we had a pretty good chance to win, but I knew it would be fairly close.

“Anyway, it will be better for Fermin down the road. By resting, he won’t have any prolonged or major problems from the knee.”

In South Coast girls’ action:

Dana Hills, ranked third in the county and eighth in the Southern Section 4-A division, took the first four spots and won easily with 35. Irvine (65) was second, Mission Viejo (73) third, El Toro (81) fourth, Capistrano Valley (106) fifth and San Clemente (121) sixth.

Dana Hills senior Kellie Lewis covered the three-mile course in 18:53 to win. Lisa Eck (18:58) was second, junior Kirsten Quigley (19:02) was third and junior Maryann Matus (19:17) fourth.

In the Garden Grove League:

Senior Kathy Cannon of La Quinta set a league final meet record of 17:56 on the three-mile course in Fountain Valley’s Mile Square Park to lead the Aztecs to an easy victory with 18 points.

Santiago (71) was second and Garden Grove (101) third.

Santiago (36) won the boys’ division, Garden Grove (49) was second and Los Amigos (93) third.