HIGH SCHOOL CROSS COUNTRY : La Jolla Overcomes Setback, Wins Division II

Despite having one of its top runners drop out midway through the race, the La Jolla High School girls’ cross-country team won the Division II title Saturday at the state championships at Woodward Park.

Sophomore Mailee Ferguson, who has occasionally suffered this season from arrhythmia--an irregular heartbeat--was forced to stop midway through the 5,000-meter race. Ferguson, who has been taking medication for the ailment, recovered in time to join her teammates on the victory stand.

“Her pulse shoots up to like 300 beats a minute; it’s like she can’t breathe,” La Jolla Coach Bill Stock said. “You can see she’s OK now though, she’s laughing.”

La Jolla, which entered the meet as the division’s top-ranked team, won with 88 points. Second-ranked Mills of Milbrae was second with 94, and No. 3 Corona del Mar was third with 116.

“At one point, I figured if we had Mailee Ferguson finish, we had it pretty well wired,” Stock said. “But then she didn’t finish the race. But because my No. 4 girl (Julie Schoene) finished where Mailee usually would, and our No. 5 girl (Lorena Santana) ran her brains out, we did it.”

Patty Villarreal, 18th in 19 minutes 13 seconds, led La Jolla and Schoene (20th, 19:16), Stephanie Bache (27th, 19:40), Emily Beardsley (37th, 19:55) and Santana (48th, 20:11) rounded out the top five.

In Division I (large schools), Deanna Hadley finished 11th in 18:37 to lead San Pasqual to third with 119 points, just three points ahead of fourth-place Mt. Carmel. Two-time defending state champion Palos Verdes won its third title with 68, and Agoura, led by Deena Drossin--first in 17:27, a meet record--was second with 75.

In boys’ competition, Santana’s David Virgil was 17th in Division I in 15:47. Teammate Russell Reid was 35th in 16:07.

Other top San Diego performers included the Calvin Christian boys (fifth in Division III) and Tom Bache of USDHS (19th in Division II in 16:16).