Canyon Gets Rewarded for Showing Up

It’s called the Santa Clarita Valley Invitational, but many of the top high school cross-country runners from that area were absent from the meet on Saturday at lower Castaic Lake.

The reasons were twofold.

First, the second Foothill League meet of the season was held at the same location on Thursday.

Second, coaches from Saugus, Hart and Valencia didn’t want their top runners competing in their second race in three days and a week before the prestigious Mt. San Antonio College Invitational in Walnut.

Canyon’s Dave DeLong was the only coach from the Santa Clarita Valley who entered his best runners in the meet and he was rewarded with a pair of large-school titles.

Canyon defeated Newbury Park, 80-133, for the boys’ championship and Lancaster, 66-103, for the girls’ title.

“It’s not something that I like,” DeLong said about racing on the same course twice in three days.

“But I believe we should support our own race.”

Canyon, The Times’ No. 2-ranked boys’ team in the region, placed four runners among the top 20, despite running without sophomore Jameson Mora, who was taking the preliminary Scholastic Assessment Test.

Sophomore Luke Llamas led the Cowboys with a third-place time of 15:16 over the three-mile course that consisted of relatively flat asphalt roadways and cement bike paths for the first 2 1/4 miles, and rolling dirt hills for the final three-quarters of a mile.

Llamas surged from seventh to third in the final downhill portion, but finished well behind juniors Oswaldo Pina of Lakewood and Ryan Hall of Big Bear, who were both clocked in 14:40.

Senior Mike Summe finished ninth in 15:28 for Canyon, senior Aaron Hope 18th in 15:52, senior Mike Collins 20th in 15:57 and freshman Ryan Morgan 30th in 16:14.

Junior Warren Livingston of Newbury Park finished 15th in 15:46, junior Brandon Nakagawa 16th in 15:47 and sophomore Randy Smith 17th in 15:48.

Canyon won its third consecutive girls’ title, paced by individual winner Jazmin Treadway.

The sophomore was Canyon’s No. 2 runner last year behind senior Lauren Fleshman, the Division I state champion, but she has been the Cowboys’ top runner this season.

She finished second to freshman Whitney Russell of Hart in the Foothill League meet on Thursday, but broke away from runner-up Rosanna Kirkendall of Lancaster with about 1,200 yards left to win in 18:17.

“I took off on a downhill portion of the course,” Treadway said. “Me and [Kirkendall] had been going back and forth before then.”

Kirkendall, a senior who won the second Golden League meet of the season on Wednesday, placed second in 18:32.

Junior Jennifer Turk of Newbury Park was third in 18:55 and freshman Brenda Stevens of Canyon placed fourth in 18:56.

Sophomore Barrie Truex and senior Erin White of Canyon finished 14th and 15th in identical times of 19:42, and sophomore teammate Sabrina Ghanem placed 32nd in 20:52.

Louisville edged Lancaster Desert Christian, 43-45, for the girls’ small-schools title and San Diego beat Ridgecrest Burroughs, 62-76, for the boys’ championship.

Junior Natalie Elias placed second in 19:32 for Louisville, ranked No. 3 in Division IV in the state.

Senior teammate Rosemary Muller was sixth in 19:47 and sophomore Erica Hanson was eighth in 19:55.

Sophomore Jennifer Wright of Desert Christian won in 19:04.