A Banner Day for Santiago, Villa Park’s Escobar

It has been nearly a quarter century since Santiago High has hung a Southern Section team championship banner from the ceiling of its gymnasium.

Now the 1975 girls’ basketball team will finally have some company.

The Santiago boys’ cross-country team took home the Division II title at the Southern Section finals at Mt. San Antonio College Saturday, giving the school its second section team championship since its opening.

“I’m about in tears,” Santiago Coach Rex Ressler said. “They just came out here and did it.”

The Cavaliers, who entered the meet as the top-ranked team in an evenly matched division, had three runners finish ahead of every other team’s second and scored 91 points. Rene Rangel, Juan Corona and Rudy Corona finished the three-mile course less than two seconds apart in seventh, eight and ninth.

Villa Park’s Augie Escobar won the Division II race in 15 minutes 11.67 seconds, the second-fastest time of the day behind Division I winner Ozzie Pina of Lakewood (15:07.01). Escobar’s victory helped the Spartans place third and qualify for Saturday’s state finals in Fresno.

“I just wanted to lead it from the mile and try to get a pretty good time,” Escobar said. “I wanted to feel like I was training harder than everyone else.”

Santa Margarita finished fourth in Division II and grabbed the final qualifying spot. Junior Steven Murray finished fifth overall in 15:31.84 for the Eagles.

Because of the large number of Division I schools in the Southern Section, the division was divided into A and AA, based on enrollment. Both divisions ran together and the top six teams overall advanced to state.

Katella took third overall and second in Division I-A behind overall winner Chino Don Lugo. The Knights were led by senior Danny Mejia, who finished second overall and first in Division I-A (15:12.93). It was the second consecutive Southern Section individual title for Mejia, who won the Division II race last season.

Esperanza’s Ryan Bousquet took fourth in the same race and qualified individually. Bousquet and Pina were side by side in the lead for the first 2 1/2 miles, but Pina pulled away heading up Reservoir Hill and Mejia and Arturo Garcia of Don Lugo caught him coming down.

“That’s a big mental letdown, when you’ve got a little more than a quarter mile left and you get passed,” said Bousquet, who improved his personal best on the course by about 18 seconds. “I hadn’t run in a field this tough since the Clovis Invitational.”

Estancia and Corona del Mar also extended their seasons another week. Estancia finished third in Division IV and Corona del Mar was fourth. Travis Beardsley finished fourth and Josh Yelsey seventh for the Sea Kings, but Estancia’s top five runners finished ahead of Corona del Mar’s third.

Laguna Beach finished fifth and missed qualifying by five points. However, Geoff Moore finished eighth and qualified as an individual.

Jeremy VanTress of Rancho Alamitos was the county’s only representative in Division III and he’ll continue that role at the state finals after placing eighth.

Other county runners qualifying as individuals were Trabuco Hills’ Sam Marquez in Division I and Laguna Hills’ Martin Rocha in Division II.