University’s Marquand Runs Like Wind, Wins Title

The wind surged through the canyons at Saturday’s Orange County Championships, but it was University senior Allyson Marquand who blew away the competition.

Marquand circled the three-mile course at Irvine Regional Park in exactly 18 minutes to capture her third consecutive county title.

Marquand won as a freshman, sophomore and senior. The race wasn’t run last year because of a brush fire.

“The wind was definitely a factor, it kept changing directions,” Marquand said. “You didn’t have it behind you the whole way, or in front of you the whole way.”

Newport Harbor’s Alicia McFall finished 22 seconds behind Marquand, Santa Margarita sophomore Lori Mann was a stride behind McFall, and Esperanza’s Nicole DiStefano (18:28) and Pam Smith (18:36) were next.

In addition to the fourth- and fifth-place finishes by DiStefano and Smith, Esperanza runners also took 14th, 15th and 25th to give the Aztecs their first county team title.

Irvine runners finished 17th through 20th and 33rd, and finished second, Santa Margarita was third, Corona del Mar fourth and University fifth.

“We’re not ranked in CIF right now, but we want to get ranked,” Marquand said. “This is the first meet we’ve had our whole team here and we’ve all been pretty healthy. We were all looking to do pretty well.”

Marquand separated herself from the pack after the first mile, when the wind was at its worst. At the halfway point she held about a 30-second lead over McFall and maintained it the rest of the way.

“The second mile is usually my weakest mile, but it’s the fastest mile here, so I wanted to try and pick that one up,” Marquand said. “I tried to pick it up on the downhill and then I tried to keep it at that pace.”

In her freshman and sophomore years, Marquand ran under 18 minutes to win the county title on the same course, but estimated that the wind slowed her by eight to 10 seconds per mile in her third victory.

“The last two miles I ran each about six minutes flat though, so that was good,” she said.

Marquand is also a highly regarded soccer player and her competitive schedule has been slowed this season by recruiting trips and club tournaments that have conflicted with some meets. Marquand said she expects to make a decision next week on scholarship offers from UCLA, USC and Stanford.

“I had to go on recruiting trips this fall because this is the college soccer season,” she said. “But I think in the long run it has helped [not participating full time this fall] because I know running a meet or two meets every single week, by CIF you’re pretty beat up. I would have liked to run some of those meets because it’s my last year, but you’ve got to go with your colleges.”