SONORA CROSS-COUNTRY INVITATIONAL : Gonzales, Pinto Break Away to Win

Mark Gonzales of La Habra High School and Katella’s Martha Pinto won the Division I races Saturday at the Sonora Cross-Country Invitational, which attracted 449 runners and 25 schools to Carbon Canyon Regional Park.

Gonzales completed the 5K course in 15 minutes 36 seconds. Although he finished six seconds ahead of Rosemead’s Juan Gutierrel, Gonzales said he had only one concern during the race: his stomach.

“I’ve had the stomach flu for so long now,” he said. “In the last mile (or) half-mile, it was really starting to grind. That first mile was kind of fast, but then everybody started to slowly drag out, and I gradually just broke away.”

The top 10 finishers in the boys’ Division I race turned in faster times than the winner of the Division II race: Northview’s Joe Garcia, who led 62 runners with a time of 17:01.

Pinto blazed ahead of the pack, with an unofficial time of 5:16 for the first mile. With about a half-mile to go, she was still sprinting and was more than 300 meters ahead of the next runner.

Pinto, a senior, finished in 18:01, 1:16 ahead of Paramount’s Marissa Avendano.

“My coach told me if there was no one running with me, to just relax and take it as a workout,” Pinto said.

And how did the workout measure up? “It’s a little harder here because there’s a lot of grass on that hill. (But) it was pretty good,” Pinto said.

Katella won the combined boys’ and girls’ Sweepstakes trophy.