Glusac Sets Record, Wins State Meet

High school cross-country runners, past and present, didn’t offer Milena Glusac of Fallbrook High much competition in the state championships Saturday at Woodward Park.

Glusac, a 5-foot-5, 86-pound junior, covered the 5,000-meter course in 17 minutes, 13 seconds to win the state Division I girls’ title by 48 seconds over Agoura’s Kay Nekota and shatter by 14 seconds former Agoura standout Deena Drosin’s two-year-old state meet record of 17:27.

“It’s easier when you’re running with somebody,” Glusac said of her solo effort. “It’s difficult to push yourself. I just concentrate.”

Glusac’s victory was the first by a San Diego Section girl in the state meet since Rancho Buena Vista’s Kira Jorgensen won the Division I championship in 1988.

Nekota led Agoura to its second consecutive state Division I title, 41-67, over Palos Verdes Peninsula, and Newhall Hart scored a 43-88 victory over Peninsula for its second boys’ Division I title in a row.

San Pasqual, the defending Division II boys’ and girls’ champion, lost its boys’ crown by a narrow margin and was hindered on the girls’ level because its No. 2 runner was injured in a car accident earlier in the week.

Despite the third- and sixth-place finishes of Brian Keim (15:33) and Nazario Romero (15:44), the Golden Eagles succumbed to Concord De La Salle’s superior grouping and lost, 75-83. Helix (125) was fourth.

San Pasqual’s girls, competing without No. 2 runner Deanna Hadley, dropped a 52-55 decision to Huntington Beach Edison. El Capitan (136) was third. Melissa Keim paced San Pasqual with a fourth-place finish 18:33.

“For us to even come close is great,” San Pasqual Coach Will Wester said. “It’s disappointing, but the girls ran as well as they could.”

Daniel Das Neves won the Division II boys’ title in 15:08, but the Helix junior’s duel with Agoura’s Ryan Wilson over the final one-half mile was better suited for The Mirage in Las Vegas than a cross-country course.

According to Wilson, Das Neves bumped him hard when Das Neves passed him on the left side. Wilson said he then gave Das Neves a hard elbow, which Das Neves said struck him in the chest.

Das Neves said there was repeated contact during the latter stages of the race before eventually pulled away. Wilson finished second in 15:16.

La Jolla, which won the Division II title in 1989 and the Division III crown last year, finished seventh in Division III with 181 points, four ahead of USDHS.