Birmingham Falls to Belmont, Bell in Cross-Country

Birmingham High’s one-two-three punch is as potent as any in the City Section, but if the Braves are to win the boys’ cross-country title this year, their fourth and fifth runners will have to improve dramatically.

That was painfully obvious Thursday after Birmingham finished third behind Belmont and Bell in a season-opening nonleague quadrangular meet at Griffith Park.

Birmingham, paced by winner Alvaro Mejia, placed three runners among the top eight finishers, but their Nos. 4 and 5 runners finished 18th and 23rd. The Braves totaled 55 points.

Belmont, winner of eight of the last 10 City titles, placed first with 43 points, followed by defending City champion Bell with 54. Taft, which won the City title in 1989, finished fourth with 87 points.

“We just needed to get a race under our belts,” Birmingham Coach Scott King said. “Obviously, there was a large gap between our third and fourth kids, and we’ll have to work on that. But we’ve got plenty of time.”

With only three runners returning from last year’s team, which placed third in the City behind Bell and Birmingham, Belmont was considered a slight underdog. But the Sentinels used their trademark tight grouping to win easily, placing five runners among the top 12.

The gap between Belmont’s No. 1 and No. 5 runners was only 34 seconds. Birmingham had a gap of nearly two minutes.

“We’re still a long way from the City finals,” Belmont Coach Gordon Weisenburger said. “But I was pleased with the way we ran. We were a question mark coming into this meet, but we got some answers today.”

Mejia, the defending City champion, did not look particularly fluid, yet he broke away from Juan Camacho and Dennis Vela of Bell with a mile to go, then withstood a late rush by Camacho. Mejia timed 14 minutes 40 seconds over the 2.9-mile course.

Camacho ran 14:45, followed by Vela (14:51), Wilbert Estrada (14:55) of Belmont and Leo Quintana (15:01) of Birmingham.

Sophomore Jose Torres finished eighth in 15:04 for Birmingham.

Birmingham, Belmont and Bell will meet again at Griffith Park on Saturday in the Division I race of the Bell-Jeff invitational.