Katella Boys Dominate; Irvine Girls Finish Comeback

One victory capped an undefeated season for the Katella High boys’ team.

Another put an exclamation point on a superb comeback in the last third of the season by the Irvine girls.

And a third showed what can happen when you take the race to the opposition like senior Alberto Munoz of Estancia did.

All three were in stark contrast to one-point losses suffered by the Santa Ana boys and the Corona del Mar girls in the state cross-country championships Saturday at Woodward Park.

Katella rolled to its first state title on a cool and overcast day with a 40-112 victory over runner-up Escondido San Pasqual.

The Knights placed five runners among the first 27 and their 40-point total equaled the lowest ever in a Division II boys’ race.

“We were confident that if the guys ran the type of races they’ve been running all season that we would have a good chance at winning,” Katella Coach Mike Cochrane said. “Winning state has been a goal for us since the start of the season and it’s nice to do it.”

Junior Daniel Mejia of Katella finished fifth with a time of 15:48 over the 5,000-meter course that was muddy in places from an overnight rain and junior teammate Juan Casas was 16th in 16:09.

Junior Tony Lozano was 21st in 16:18 for the Knights with senior Matt Levassiur 22nd in 16:19 and junior Ramiro Guerrero 27th in 16:23.

Katella was so dominant that Guerrero would have been the No. 2 runner on 13 of the other 14 teams in the race.

“Our grouping has been our strength all season,” Cochrane said.

Irvine defeated Esperanza, 88-93, to win its second Division I girls’ title.

Esperanza, with senior Pam Smith 10th in 18:36 and sophomore Nicole Distefano 12th in 18:50, had two runners ahead of Irvine’s top performer for the second race in a row. But the Vaqueros won because their top five runners finished ahead of Esperanza’s No. 3 scorer.

Junior Valerie Morris of Irvine placed 15th in 18:53 with freshman teammate Kira Mettra 25th in 19:04.

Freshman Jordan Bechtold was 33rd in 19:12 for the Vaqueros with senior Melissa Livermore 37th in 19:16 and freshman Jenny Ormes 41st in 19:27.

Not bad for a team that tied for third in the Sea View League dual-meet standings after being slowed by mid-season injuries.

“We were favored, but we actually saw a lot of similarities between this year and 1993.” Irvine Coach Randy Rossi said. “We had some injuries during the middle of the season that year too.”

Munoz won the Division IV boys’ title in 15:53 after finishing four seconds behind sophomore Ryan Hall of Big Bear in the Southern Section championships at Mt. San Antonio College the week before.

Hall got away from Munoz in the first half of that race, but Munoz ran stride for stride with Hall for the first 2 1/2 miles Saturday before breaking the race open and defeating second-place Mark Nevers of Oak Park by 10 seconds.

Santa Ana, with senior Alfonso Leon finishing second in 15:23, totaled 116 points in the Division I boys’ race to finish one point behind defending champion Long Beach Poly, and one in front of third-place Saugus.

Ojai Nordhoff defeated Corona del Mar, 54-55, in the Division IV girls’ race to win its fifth title of the decade and avenge a 63-71 loss in the section championships.

Junior Liz Morse of Corona del Mar finished fifth in 19:05, but Nordhoff had five runners in front of the Sea Kings’ No. 4 scorer.