Lopez Runs Third, Neipp Finished at Start

The thrill of qualifying for the national championships and the agony of a brilliant season coming to an abrupt end were evident in the faces of seniors David Lopez of Hoover High and Andrea Neipp of Highland after the West regional cross-country championships at Woodward Park on Saturday.

A beaming Lopez received his medal for finishing third in the boys’ race as a teary-eyed Neipp sat in the audience and wondered what might have been had a severe asthma attack not forced her to drop out of the girls’ race after 500 yards.

“I’m really disappointed,” Neipp said after being attended to by paramedics.

“I knew I was having problems breathing when I was warming up, but I didn’t say anything to anyone because I wanted to run in this race so bad. . . .

“But once I got out there, I started to feel weird and I couldn’t breathe.”

The lack of oxygen caused Neipp to begin to stagger shortly after the start, at which point Highland Coach John Johnston told her to drop out.

“This [race] was her focus all year,” Johnston said. “Winning [the state Division II title] was nice, but this was the meet she had been pointing for.”

Lopez expressed similar feelings after becoming the third Hoover runner to qualify for the national championships by finishing among the top eight runners.

“I decided to come here so focused that I wouldn’t give up no matter how tired I might feel,” he said.

“I didn’t care how tired I was, I was just going to push through it.”

That determination was evident in the final mile when Lopez moved from eighth place to third to clock 15 minutes 16 seconds over the 5,000-meter course.

The time was four seconds faster than Lopez’ second-place time in the Division I race of the state championships at Woodward Park a week earlier and it made him the first finisher from California.

Ryan Andrus of Mountain View High in Orem, Utah, placed first with a time of 15:00 and Rhy Reynolds of Newport, Ore., was second in 15:12.

Andrus, the first runner from Utah to win a West region title since the meet began in 1979, and Reynolds were among the leaders throughout the race, but it took time for Lopez to work his way through the pack.

He was near 40th place after the first mile before moving into 22nd at 1 1/2 miles. He moved into eighth by the two-mile mark (9:48), but he wasn’t feeling confident.

“[The pace] felt fast the whole way,” he said. “I was kind of scared that it might be too fast, but I knew that I had to stay after it.

“I couldn’t let it get away.”

He didn’t and his third-place effort gave Hoover a trio of runners who have qualified for the national championships, which will be held on Dec. 14.

Hoover’s Eliazar Herrera placed fifth in the 1989 West regional and Margarito Casillas won the race in 1991.

“Margo was a great runner and Eliazar was before him so that was a lot of motivation,” Lopez said.

“I just wanted to qualify for nationals and join that Hoover tradition.”

It appeared Nordhoff junior Dusty Herman might join Lopez on the West region team after the first two miles, but he faded from ninth place to 19th in the final mile.

Herman, who finished fourth in the Division IV race of the state championships, was a second back of Lopez at two miles before finishing in 15:45, his best by four seconds on the Woodward Park course.

In the girls’ race, Canyon sophomore Lauren Fleshman was the top finisher from the region with a 19th-place time of 18:31.

Junior Elaine Canchola of Nordhoff did not run because of a leg injury.

Canchola finished second in the 1994 West regional and fourth in ‘95, but she hadn’t run as well this year after missing the track season to help care for her younger siblings after school and to take a break from competition.

Other noteworthy performances were turned in by Bryan Green of Littlerock, Breanne Schweitzer of Saugus and Danielle Day of Quartz Hill.

Green clocked 15:58 to place 39th in the boys’ race.

Schweitzer ran 19:00 to finish 35th in the girls’ race and Day was 37th in 19:03.