ARROYO FLIERS : High School Cross-Country Team, Ranked No. 1 in the State, Sticks Together

Earlier this season at the Stanford Invitational, their biggest and best meet of the year so far, El Monte Arroyo High School’s cross-country team blitzed the course in Palo Alto with a finish that was almost too good. No team could really be that good and have such depth, could it?

The seven Arroyo runners finished 1st, 2nd, 4th, 8th, 33rd, 39th and 49th. The Knights easily beat Bend, the No. 1 team in Oregon, and San Jose Bellarmine, the best in Northern California, but it wasn’t the first time that had happened. In fact, that tight-pack running has clearly been Arroyo’s pattern in becoming the No. 1-ranked group in the state.

“I’ve seen cross-country meets for 20 years, with the great Jesuit teams (from Carmichael, Calif.) with Paul Thomas as a junior and the Mastalirs, and Saugus with the Stonerocks, and we looked like that that day,” Coach Tim O’Rourke said the other day. “We came off that last hill, and I remember thinking, ‘God, we look good.’ ”

Bill Sumner, the coach at Corona del Mar, No. 2 in the Southern Section 4-A Division, saw the Knights, a 3-A team, pull the same copy-cat killing of his Sea Kings at the Woodbridge Invitational in Irvine, with five Arroyo runners finishing in the top 15 and only 41 seconds separating them.

“I think they were hooked together with handcuffs or something,” he said.

Going into this weekend’s high school division of the Mt. San Antonio College Invitational in Walnut, the most important regular-season race on the West Coast, Arroyo’s all-senior team of Jaime Ortega, Derrick Powers, Gerardo Puentes, Jeff Gilkey, Mike Deitch, Albert Paredes and Doug Jones have played the bunch game in winning their first four invitationals of 1987 and a sixth Mission Valley League championship in the last eight years.

And the lower divisions of the program play follow the leader. The junior varsity has gone undefeated in league competition nine straight years, and the frosh-soph team hasn’t lost in 10.

Although they are different in personality and running styles--Puentes is a fast starter as a 1:57 half-miler in track, Powers is a good finisher, and Ortega is consistent on any course--the Knights appear inseparable on race day. That kind of team strength will usually prevail against a single great runner.

Exhibit A is that Arroyo had two championships and two second-place finishes in the 2-A finals from 1980-83, a pair of third places in the 3-A in 1984 and ‘85, and won the 3-A crown last season--all without ever having a Southern Section individual champion.

“That makes us better than some of the past teams,” said Powers, the No. 2 runner who finished second in the 3-A individual final last year and first at Stanford this season. “We’re all good and we all run together. It sounds a little cocky sometimes, but I feel good about this team and I’m proud to run with them. I’m sure any cross-country runner would be.”

The 1983 team made a lasting impression by winning the 2-A championship with the top five runners taking 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 8th and 14th. But, O’Rourke, in his 10th year with the Knights, said: “This team is better than that team. I’ve never had a team, and I have not seen many, where the first four were as strong up front. It’s amazing really.”

There have been other indications that this is not an ordinary team. The story goes that O’Rourke called Bell Gardens to enter a team in its Oct. 10 invitational at Legg Lake in Whittier but told the host coach that it would be the Knights’ junior varsity team running the varsity race. “Thank you,” was the relieved response.

Prep Notes

The best race of the weekend at Mt. SAC could turn out to be the girls’ individual, with unbeaten freshman Deena Drossin of Agoura facing veterans Kira Jorgensen of Rancho Buena Vista of the San Diego Section, one of the nation’s best; Tracey Williams of El Monte Mountain View, Brigid Freyne of Riverside Poly and Tanya Thayer of Serrano. Palos Verdes, coming off its winning performance in the Manhattan College Invitational in New York and last week its own invitational, is clearly the team to beat in the girls’ sweepstakes. The Sea Kings are No. 1 in the state. The 1-A teams for boys and girls will race today at 2 p.m. All others will run Saturday, with the first race scheduled for 7:45 a.m.

On a night of several big football games, tonight’s headliner is Fontana, No. 1 in the Southern Section, against No. 3 Eisenhower at Rialto in the Citrus Belt League. Each team is 6-0 and living up to expectations after reaching the Big Five Conference semifinals last season. Each also has a running back coming off a big game. Derrick Malone of Fontana had 239 yards and a touchdown in 27 carries in a 41-8 win over Redlands last weekend and Dennis Collier finished with 234 yards and 2 scores in 24 carries in a 21-10 victory over Riverside Poly. Collier, a junior, has 999 yards in 103 carries so far, a 9.7 average. Elsewhere, Burbank Burroughs (6-0), No. 9 in the Southern Section, plays host to No. 10 Newhall Hart (5-1) in a Foothill League game, and Atascadero (6-0), the top-ranked team in the Desert-Mountain Conference, meets St. Joseph of Santa Maria (6-0), the second-ranked team in the conference, at Atascadero in a rematch of the 1986 championship game. The best game in the City is No. 4 Wilmington Banning against No. 10 L.A. Dorsey at Harbor College.

Brian Fleming of Laguna Hills caught 18 passes for 293 yards Oct. 9 against Santa Paula, the third-highest single-game yardage total in Southern Section history. The 18 receptions tied for fourth-best. The day before, Jeff Dooley of Mission Viejo Trabuco Hills had caught 9 for 278 yards, the sixth-best in yardage, against Rancho Palos Verdes Miraleste. Last week, David Nottoli of Lancaster Paraclete took over the No. 10 spot with 254 yards in 14 receptions. . . . Sprinter Quincy Watts of Woodland Hills Taft, the state champion at 100 and 200 meters, has decided to play basketball again, despite also training full time in track for a spot on the U.S. Olympic team. Watts was an All-Valley League selection in basketball as a sophomore, when he averaged 14.9 points and 8.1 rebounds a game, and showed definite potential in his “other” sport, but a foot injury cut his junior season short. And if something like that were to happen again, now with more at stake in track? “If he gets hurt,” basketball Coach Jim Woodard told the Daily News, “I’m leaving town.”

The records said that St. Paul of Santa Fe Springs shouldn’t have been on the same field with Anaheim Servite last Saturday, but the Swordsmen begged to differ. Despite a 1-4 record, they upset the Friars, who had been unbeaten at 4-0-1, 31-21. Servite had allowed 24 just points and had three shutouts in the five previous games. Quarterback Greg Willig led the way with 300 yards and 2 touchdowns passing and another 2 touchdowns rushing. It was the third straight game in which St. Paul had scored 30 points or more against Servite, traditionally a strong defensive team. . . . Morningside of Inglewood won its first boys’ cross-country meet since 1973 Oct. 9, beating El Segundo. DeShaun Allen, normally the Monarchs’ No. 1 runner, finished seventh overall after losing the soles of his shoes in mid-race and running the last two miles barefoot on pavement. . . . No. 2 La Serna of Whittier beat No. 3 El Rancho of Pico Rivera, 11-4, last Friday in a match-up of two of the best Southern Section 2-A water polo teams.