Record-Tying Nine Runners Form Southland Contingent

Senior Steve Smith of Chino Hills Ayala and junior Lauren Fleshman of Canyon Country Canyon will lead a contingent of five boys’ and four girls’ runners from the Southland in the national high school cross-country championships Saturday in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

The championships, which began in 1979, are being held in Florida for the first time since 1982 and will be run at the Oaks Trails Golf Course at Shades of Green.

The nine entrants from the Southern Section tie a mark set in 1990, when Louie Quintana of Arroyo Grande became the last Californian to win the national boys’ title.

The 1990 meet was the eighth of 14 consecutive national championships to be held at Morley Field in San Diego, but Foot Locker, the sponsor of the meet, changed sites when the Walt Disney Co. expressed interest in having it contested at its Wide World of Sports Complex.

Thirty-two boys and girls will run in today’s meet after placing among the top eight finishers in either the West, Midwest, Northeast or South regionals.

Smith won a muddy West regional at Woodward Park in Fresno last Saturday by outkicking seniors Dusty Herman of Ojai Nordhoff and Ronnie Buchanan of Santa Maria Righetti in the final 100 meters of the 5,000-meter race.

Although Smith’s time of 15 minutes 30 seconds over the rain-soaked course was the all-time slowest winning mark in the West regional, he was ecstatic because it came a week after he finished fourth in the state Division I final at Woodward Park.

Smith was regarded as one of the favorites for the state title after winning the Southern Section Division I championship Nov. 22, but said he didn’t put forth an all-out effort in the state meet because that would have hurt his chances of finishing among the top eight in the West regional.

“I’m not saying I would have definitely won state,” Smith said Saturday. “But my coach and I knew that if I wanted to run well today, I couldn’t run three hard races in a row. Winning the section title was very important to me so we decided that we were going to have to hold back a little in the state meet.”

Seniors Mark Gleason of Mission Viejo and Isaiah Festa of Morro Bay finished fifth and sixth in the West regional to round out the qualifiers from the Southern Section, the largest of the state’s 10 sections.

Fleshman clocked 17:51 in the West regional to place second behind junior Mariel Ettinger of La Grande (Ore.), who finished in 17:40.

The other qualifiers from the Southern Section were senior Kimi Welsh of Yucaipa in third, senior Jennifer Burris of Ayala in sixth and junior Allyson Marquand of Irvine University.

Marquand didn’t run for University during the second half of the season, choosing to play soccer, but she nonetheless qualified for the nationals for the first time.

Somalian native Abdirizak Mohamud of Boston English is favored to become the first two-time winner in the boys’ race, with his toughest competition expected to come from fellow senior Jorge Torres of Wheeling (Ill.), who finished fifth in the national championships last year.

There is no clear-cut favorite in the girls’ race, although South regional champion Laura Heiner of Centreville (Va.) placed fifth last year.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Cross-Country

* What: National high school championships.

* Where: Oaks Trails Golf Course at Shades of Green, Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

* When: Saturday.

* At stake: National individual boys’ and girls’ championships. Top five finishers are first-team All-Americans.

* 1996 champions: Girls--Kristen Gordon, Carondelet (Concord, Calif.); Boys--Abdirizak Mohamud, Boston English (Boston).