HIGH SCHOOL CROSS-COUNTRY / WEST REGIONAL : Continuing String of Surprises, Nordhoff’s Canchola Places 2nd

Anyone who figured that Elaine Canchola’s meteoric rise toward the top of the high school cross-country ranks had flamed out in the state championships got a big surprise Saturday when the Nordhoff freshman placed second in the girls’ race of the Foot Locker West regional at Woodward Park.

Canchola, runner-up to Buena Park’s Heather Garritson in the Division III race of the state finals Nov. 26, timed 17 minutes 33 seconds over the 5,000-meter course.

Her performance was 34 seconds faster than in the previous week and enabled her to qualify for the national championships at San Diego’s Balboa Park on Dec. 10.

“I didn’t really have a goal,” a jubilant Canchola said. “I guess I would say that I would have taken any place as long as I qualified for nationals. I really wanted that bad.”

The top eight finishers in the girls’ and boys’ races advanced to the national finals, and Canchola was one of five local runners to do so.

The others were Amy Skieresz of Agoura, fifth in the girls’ race, and Antonio Arce of Palmdale, Eleazar Hernandez of Camarillo and Brett Strahan of Hart, who placed third, fourth and fifth in the boys’ event.

Although Strahan’s performance was surprising after an 11th-place finish in the state Division I final, he was regarded as a national-championship contender at the start of the season, as were Skieresz, Arce and Hernandez.

Canchola was an unknown.

She ran “21-something” in her first race, and in her fourth, finished 13th in the Division III sweepstakes of the Mt. San Antonio College Invitational on Oct. 21.

She followed that with a third-place finish in the Ventura County championships behind Skieresz and Kim Mortensen of Thousand Oaks, then won the Frontier League title. She ran 17:53 in a heat of the Southern Section prelims at Mt. SAC before winning the section title with a freshman course record of 17:35.

When Garritson, another freshman, pulled away from her in the final mile of the state meet, however, many figured that Canchola was out of surprises.

Wrong.

She was among the top 10 runners after the first mile Saturday and moved into fifth at two miles before surging into second on a downhill portion of the course shortly thereafter.

Santa Rosa sophomore Julia Stamps was a runaway winner as expected. With her time of 16:45, she cut 21 seconds off the course record she had set in winning the state Division I title.

Skieresz had won Division II titles in the section and state finals but had felt unusually fatigued at the end of both races and her confidence was lacking.

The jitters hampered her in the first mile--she was 13th--but she moved into 11th at two miles before finishing fifth in 17:47.

“Once I relaxed, I started to feel good,” Skieresz said. “At the mile mark, I didn’t think I had much of a chance at qualifying, but I started to feel strong at the (midway point).”

Mortensen moved up 11 places in the final mile, but her time of 18:07 left her in 10th place for the second year in a row.

Arce, Jason Balkman of San Jose Lynbrook and Brandon Leslie of Gallup, N.M., were among the leaders at the one-mile mark (4:40) of the boys’ race, and by two miles (9:39) the trio had broken clear of the field with Balkman holding a five- and 10-meter lead over Leslie and Arce, respectively.

Balkman, the state Division I champion, extended his lead to the finish as he clocked 14:58. Leslie timed 15:03 and Arce 15:05.

“This is what I’ve been waiting for all season,” said Arce, who finished second in the 3,200 meters in the state track championships in June.

“Ever since track, making nationals has been my No. 1 goal.”

Hernandez, runner-up in the state Division I final, and Strahan also attained that goal, but they came from behind to do it.

Hernandez went from 11th to fourth (15:08) in the final mile and Strahan stormed from 17th to fifth (15:09).

“I just dug down in the final mile and decided I was going to use everything God had given me,” Strahan said. “And today, he gave me a lot.”

Strahan, who had been hampered by a sinus infection the previous two weeks, snapped a streak of sub-par races at Woodward Park.

In addition to his 11th-place finish in the state Division I final, he had finished 21st in the 1993 state championships before dropping out of the West regional the following week because of a bronchial infection.