Stein Weighs In With a Whopper and North Hollywood Wins Title

Natalie Stein of North Hollywood High stayed the course in the Valley Pac-8 Conference Classic cross-country meet at Pierce College on Wednesday and the results were stunning.

Stein, a 5-foot-1, 95-pound freshman, clocked 18:04 over the three-mile course to win by more than two minutes and North Hollywood beat runner-up Reseda, 44-62.

Stein’s time was 53 seconds faster than El Camino Real junior Jamie Newman ran to win the Northwest Valley Conference meet.

Newman, 1995 City Section champion as a freshman, ran a career-best of 18:57 to defeat defending City champion Tiffany Burgess, a junior from Birmingham, by 23 seconds. She was upstaged shortly thereafter by Stein.

Stein was leading Newman after more than two miles in a nonconference meet last week when she took a wrong turn and finished second behind Newman in 19:22.

North Hollywood Coach Gary Smith, intrigued by what Stein might have done, had her run at Pierce on Saturday and she clocked 18:45.

“I told her today that she was going to break 18 and she almost did,” Smith said.

Stein, who said she ran 5:50 in the mile during the eighth grade at Walter Reed Junior High in North Hollywood, seemed overwhelmed with all the attention she received after her performance.

When a reporter asked her if she expected to run as fast as she did, she shrugged her shoulders, looked down at her feet and answered, “Not really.”

When asked if she realized she’d run substantially faster than the two previous City champions, she admitted she didn’t know who they were before the race.

“I looked at the times [last year], but I didn’t really keep track of the names,” she said with a smile.

While most spectators and runners were amazed by Stein’s performance, Smith wasn’t surprised.

He said Stein trains with the North Hollywood boys’ team and beats most of them in practice.

In fact, Stein’s time would have made her the No. 2 runner among the Huskies’ boys Wednesday.

“She as good as the boys,” Smith said. “She pushes them and they push her in the workouts.”

Newman scored a big victory over Burgess in the Northwest Valley Conference meet but was low-key about it afterward.

“I just wanted to go out and see if I could stay with Tiffany,” she said. “She’s a pretty good runner so I figured that if I could stay with her, I’d be doing all right.”

Birmingham, paced by Burgess, placed sixth runners in the top 10 finishers to total 29 points to the 83 of runner-up Chatsworth.

Although Newman’s time was a career best at Pierce, she still isn’t training at the level she’d like after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on her left knee in February.

“I still can’t go off campus for workouts,” she said. “I have to stay on the track and grass. Running on the streets still causes pain in my knee.”

Antonio Gavino of North Hollywood won the Valley Pac-8 boys’ race in 16:31 and Mateo Gonzalez of Birmingham took the Northwest Valley Conference race in 16:40.

Monroe, paced by the 2-3-4 finish of sophomore Omar Ortega, Adam Kaplan and Lupe Delgadillo, beat second-place Poly, 39-74, in the Valley Pac-8 Conference meet.

Birmingham scored a 57-59 victory over Taft in the Northwest Valley Conference meet.