CROSS-COUNTRY ROUNDUP : Killeen Leads Valencia Girls to Orange Title

Heather Killeen of Valencia won her third Orange League cross-country championship in four years, leading the Tigers to an easy team title Wednesday at Craig Regional Park in Fullerton.

Anaheim edged Valencia for the boys’ championship, with Ray Estrada of Savanna taking the individual title.

Killeen, a senior, finished the three-mile course in 18 minutes 59 seconds. The Valencia girls placed four other runners in the top seven to defeat runner-up Brea-Olinda, 20-64. Valencia, Brea-Olinda and Savanna, which was third with 79 points, will advance to the Nov. 10 Southern Section preliminaries at Mt. San Antonio College.

Killeen, who also won the title in her freshman and junior years, said the course was more difficult than she expected.

“It was hard and that surprised me because we usually run flat courses in league,” she said. “This course had a lot of steep uphills and downhills.”

Dena Bloomfield of Brea-Olinda was second in 20:10 and Valencia’s Yvette Flores was third (20:29).

Anaheim won the boys’ team race with 42 points. Although Savanna, with 33 points, placed third to Valencia with 51, Savanna advances as the league’s No. 2 team. The two schools were tied in the overall standings, including dual-meet competition, but Savanna defeated Valencia in a dual meet earlier this season. Both schools will join Anaheim at the Southern Section meet.

Estrada, a senior who finished second a year ago, finished in 16:23 to hold off Anaheim’s Oscar Malo, who was second in 16:41.

“He was on me the last couple of yards,” Estrada said, “but I knew my strategy and kept picking up the pace.”