North Hollywood’s Stein Breezes

Junior Natalie Stein of North Hollywood High posted a runaway victory in her qualifying heat of the City Section cross-country preliminaries at Pierce College on Wednesday, but she’ll be a decided underdog in the City finals.

Stein, the 1997 City champion, and defending champion Valerie Flores of San Pedro were co-favorites entering the last two City finals. But Flores has improved greatly this season while Stein has run slower in most of her races.

“I’m not really sure why,” Stein said. “I’m just hoping to run my best time in the [City] final.”

The finals are at Pierce on Nov. 20.

Stein, who won the Sunset Six League title in a career-best-equaling 17:56 at Pierce last week, took the first girls’ heat with an 18:20 clocking over the three-mile course on Wednesday. Flores cruised to a course record of 17:34 in the second heat.

Flores, a senior, broke the previous course best of 17:49 set by Sandra Rodriguez of Wilson in 1986, despite putting forth what assistant coach Bruce Thomson called a 90% effort.

San Pedro, led by the 1-2 finish of Flores and sophomore Heather Rosas, won the second heat with a 30-34 victory over Belmont, and Garfield took the first heat with 72-82 victory over Palisades.

The top five teams in each heat advanced to the City finals, as did any individual among the top 15 finishers, but not on a qualifying team.

North Hollywood, two-time defending champion Birmingham and Kennedy advanced in the girls’ meet.

Monroe, Birmingham, Verdugo Hills, Taft and Kennedy all advanced in the boys’ meet.

Monroe, led by second-place Germain Ortiz, won the second heat with 54 points, followed by Birmingham with 70.

Monroe was originally credited with a third-place total of 90 points, but it was discovered that Omar Ortega’s seventh-place finish had not been included in the Vikings’ total.

Ortiz ran 16:02 to finish behind the 15:39 clocking of senior Ernesto Bernal of San Pedro.