Early Leaders Falter, Open Door in Finals of Cross-Country

Clay Biddle remembers how confident he felt coming down the final hill at Morley Field during the 3-A race of the San Diego Section cross-country finals Friday afternoon. He remembers thinking the title was his. He remembers being relaxed.

And why not? He had an 80-yard lead and only a short way to go.

Biddle, a senior from Mt. Carmel, is considered among the best runners in the county. But he will never win a section title to confirm he’s the best. Biddle didn’t finish the race, collapsing with a quarter-mile to go.

“I can’t really tell you what happened,” said Biddle, who seemed to be his normal self a half-hour later. “I remember feeling comfortable and relaxed, but the next thing I knew I was on my back with 10 or 15 people looking down at me.”

Jeff Hernandez of Bonita Vista was cruising along in second at the time.

“He just fell,” Hernandez said. “It looked like he passed out or something--but he was conscious.”

Hernandez seized on Biddle’s misfortune and took first, completing the 3.01-mile course in 16:07, slower than both the 1-A and 2-A winners.

“I don’t think I would have caught him if he didn’t fall,” Hernandez conceded.

The early leader in the girls’ 3-A race suffered a physical strain of another kind, and although she was able to finish, she placed ninth.

Mira Hornbacher, the sophomore from Rancho Buena Vista who only last year was being touted as the heir apparent to Kira Jorgensen, set the pace early but had to give way to intense pain in both knees halfway through the race.

“I was in front until the Eucalyptus trees,” Hornbacher recalled. “And then (Milena Glusac of Fallbrook) passed me. I was staying with her, but then I started thinking about my knees and kind of gave up. I was trying to keep going but . . . I wasn’t doing anything.”

Hornbacher said she is suffering from ligament damage in both knees.

Glusac, a 14-year-old freshman, finished the girls’ 1.45-mile course first in 15:12.

San Pasqual created a stir in the 1-A races, first by earlier trying unsuccessfully to bolt the division for what Coach Will Wester insisted would be stiffer competition in higher divisions, and second by placing six runners in the top 10 in both the boys’ and girls’ 1-A races to easily win both.

In the girls’ race, Deanna Hadley of San Pasqual won her second consecutive San Diego Section title by finishing in 14:52. Also finishing among the top 10 for San Pasqual, which scored 24 points, were: Erin Blunt (third), Melissa Keim (fifth), Alma Hernandez (seventh), Allison Eilerts (eighth) and Jeni Villasenor (ninth).

It was a surprising finish in light of allegations that Wester was trying to run from favored La Jolla when he attempted to move his girls’ team to the 2-A division.

Wester said he was trying to move up to give his team a chance to run against the county’s best.

“And I don’t think the county’s best is in the 1-A,” he said. “With both the boys and the girls placing six of the top 10, I think that substantiates my reasons for wanting to move.”

La Jolla, which finished in second with 37 points, might have challenged if not for an asthma attack suffered by its No. 1 runner, Mailee Ferguson. Ferguson slowed to a walk at times and finished 18th.

Other team champions: Poway (boys’ 3-A), Mt. Carmel (girls’ 3-A), Helix (boys’ 2-A), El Capitan (girls’ 2-A), Calvin Christian (boys small schools) and Coronado (girls’ small schools).