Quartz Hill Pulls Rank With Impressive Victory

Look for the Quartz Hill High girls’ cross-country team to make its first appearance in the Southern Section Division I rankings this week after being left out of the top 10 during the first month of the season.

The Rebels deserve the recognition after romping to victory in the Division I race of the Kenny Staub Invitational at Crescenta Valley Park on Saturday.

Quartz Hill, paced by the 1-2-3 finish of senior Danielle Day, junior Carly Harrill and freshman Shell Blevins, defeated second-place and No. 8-ranked Peninsula, 32-80.

Sultana was third with 85 points, followed by Claremont at 126 and Louisville at 147.

The Rebels’ performance came a week after their third-place finish in the Division I race of the Stanford Invitational left them ahead of Peninsula and No. 4-ranked Irvine University.

“From what I’ve seen of some of the [top-ranked] Division I teams like Esperanza, we should be ranked,” Quartz Hill Coach Kelly Marsh said. “Of course, no one seems to know about us. We’re just that school up in the desert.”

Saturday’s meet was the fourth strong outing in as many races for the Rebels, who finished 10th in last year’s Southern Section Division I championships, but are “10 times better” this season, according to Marsh.

Day, Harrill and Blevins clocked 19:00, 19:22 and 19:31 over the three-mile course with Cleveland sophomore Jamie Jones fourth in 19:59. But Marsh was most pleased with the efforts of Quartz Hill freshmen Jenny Yadon and Katie Schettig, who finished ninth and 17th in 20:11 and 20:27.

“This is probably the best race we’ve had in terms of packing our third, fourth and fifth runners,” Marsh said. “Our No. 4 and 5 runners have been a little tentative about staying near that front group because they’re freshmen, but today one of them stuck her neck out a little bit and the other one went along with her.”

Numbers support Marsh’s claim.

Yadon finished 40 seconds behind Blevins after being 73 back of her at Stanford and Schettig’s deficit shrank from 79 to 56 seconds.

“We just want to try and get as close together as we can as the season goes along,” said Day, who won her third race of the season. “We do a lot of [drills] in practice to work on that.”

Day and Quartz Hill were two of six winners from the region.

Seniors Doug Hall of Flintridge Prep and Michelle Wilkinson of Alemany won the boys’ and girls’ Division II individual titles.

Birmingham defeated Saugus, 51-117, for the Division II girls’ championship, and L.A. Baptist beat Temple City, 60-72, for the Division III girls’ title.

Hall, fifth in last year’s state Division V championships, clocked 16:29 to defeat Cesar Enriguez of Manual Arts by six seconds.

Wilkinson timed 19:18 with defending City Section champion Tiffany Burgess of Birmingham second in 19:54.

Rachel Davis and Allison Jamison of L.A. Baptist placed third in 21:45 and fourth in 22:07 in the Division III girls’ race.

Juniors Lauren Fleshman of Canyon and Kim Garnic of La Canada, members of The Times’ 1996 all-region team, had disappointing performances.

Fleshman, sixth in the 1996 state Division II championships, dropped out midway through the Division I race with a recurring cramp in her side that prevented her from finishing the Woodbridge Invitational on Sept. 20.

The ailment didn’t hinder Fleshman when she won the Division I race of the Bell-Jeff Invitational on Sept. 27. It gave her mild problems Thursday when she took the first Foothill League meet of the season and had her grabbing at her side Saturday.

“It’s really frustrating because we don’t know what’s causing it,” Fleshman said. “The doctors haven’t been able to find anything. Some people have said it might be stress, but if that was the case, I think it would happen every race. . . . The hard thing is that I can’t tell before the race if I’m going to have problems.”

Garnic ran 25:11 to place 67th in the Division II race.

Breathing problems attributed to exercise-induced asthma and allergies forced Garnic to miss La Canada’s previous three meets and the layoff showed in her time, which was much slower than either she or Spartan co-coach Dennis McNulty had expected.