ORANGE COUNTY ON THE GO : HIGH SCHOOL PREVIEW : Katella Banks on Chain Reaction to Pull Off a Repeat : Cross-country: Boys’ team appears to have the talent, experience and chemistry to win its second straight state title.

If there is a symbol that best describes the Katella boys’ cross-country team, senior Danny Mejia envisions a chain--no stronger in front than in back, any link capable of replacing another, with the overall strength remaining the same.

It’s the ultimate goal in cross-country. Pack your runners close together and near the front. The first runner pulls the second, the second pulls the third, and so on.

Last season in Orange County, no team did that better than Katella, and this season the Knights are linked even tighter.

“The gaps are closing,” said Mejia, Katella’s top runner the last two seasons. “[Between runners] one through four it’s close, five and six are getting better and seven and eight are catching up to five and six.”

Katella won its first state championship last season with a tight-knit group of mostly juniors. The Knights placed five runners among the first 27 at the CIF state finals in Fresno, and their 40-point total equaled the lowest ever in a Division II boys’ race. Katella was so dominant that its fifth runner would have been among the top two on 13 of the other 14 teams.

In addition to Mejia, who won a Southern Section Division II individual title last season and was fifth at state, the Knights return three of their other top four state finishers.

Juan Casas placed 16th and has emerged as a challenger for Mejia’s top spot this season. Casas was the third male overall at a 5K race in San Clemente last month, improving his personal-best time (14 minutes 50 seconds) by nearly a minute.

“Everybody is catching up to everybody,” Casas said. “We’re trying to work as a team, but overall we’re trying to work on individual times also.”

Coach Mike Cochrane, who has led Katella to four Southern Section titles in 29 years at the school, said he has seen Casas’ confidence building since his freshman year.

“Juan’s a very tenacious, real fierce competitor,” Cochrane said. “He’s a tough, tough kid and has developed, over the last couple years a lot of confidence in what he can do. When he came in as a freshman he didn’t have that confidence.”

Cochrane said Mejia is the opposite. The coach knew from the day Mejia enrolled at Katella that he would be a top runner.

“Of all the guys on the team, he’s got a lot of running smarts,” Cochrane said. “He runs very intelligently, he knows how to plan a race, when he can lead, when he shouldn’t lead, where he should be in the pack, things like that.”

Because of his success, Mejia has been a rabbit for his teammates.

“He set some standards that the others have been aiming at for the last couple years,” Cochrane said. “Because of that, they’ve gotten better and better and they’re getting closer to him, which is good.”

Tony Lozano finished 21st at the state finals, then emerged during the spring track and field season, when he finished third in the state in the 800 meters.

“Obviously he has got the speed,” Cochrane said. “So if he’s up close at the end of a race, he’s going to have a kick and a lot of strength to run hard.”

Ramiro Guerrero was Katella’s fifth finisher at the state finals. Like Casas and Lozano, he didn’t begin to blossom until his junior year.

“He’s not quite the power runner that Juan Casas is, but he’s very consistent as far as the pace,” Cochrane said. “He can lock on a pace and then stay on it. He’s not the kind of person who can take the pack out, but he can hang with a group and then move at the end.”

Katella’s talent pool doesn’t end there. Senior Albert Rosel finished 97th at state last season, and seniors Angel De La Cruz and Roger Benavides have each produced strong results at local road races over the summer.

Because of its enrollment Katella has been moved into Division I this season, and competition is expected to stiffen in the postseason. To prepare, Cochrane and assistant coach Don Ocana plan on running their team at Saturday’s the Long Beach Millikan Invitational, where competition is divided among grade levels. The Knights will then travel to an invitational in North Carolina on Sept. 25.

“Depending on what we do there, we’ll decide if we’re going to run at Mt. SAC or if we’re going to run at the [Orange County Championships],” Cochrane said. “I don’t think we’re going to do both. They’re one week after the other, and I don’t think you can run quality races back-to-back like that.”

If Katella does skip the Oct. 16 Orange County Championships, its only appearances in Orange County this season will be at Empire League meets.

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Santiago returns its top seven runners from last season’s team, which finished third in Division II and advanced to the state finals, but living up to its potential may take some time.

Santiago Coach Rex Ressler said most of his runners worked long hours during the summer, and getting them all together for training may not happen until this week.

“A lot of my kids work right up until school starts,” Ressler said. “So we’re shooting to maybe have our best performance at the Orange County Championships.”

The Cavaliers won their fourth consecutive Garden Grove League title under Ressler last season and have a 23-meet winning streak in league. At the Division II finals at Mt. San Antonio College, Santiago finished behind first-place Katella and Newport Harbor.

“We will be strong, but it’s not going to be for a few weeks,” Ressler said. “Some of the graduates I’ve talked to recently said it always takes a couple weeks to get going.”

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AT A GLANCE

Boys’ Cross-Country

* The Proven: Villa Park senior Augie Escobar was runner-up at the Orange County Championships and finished third at the Southern Section Division II finals last season. Esperanza senior Ryan Bousquet finished sixth in the 1,600 at the state track and field finals last June. Bousquet also was Sunset League cross-country champion last season and was 11th in Southern Section Division I. Santiago senior Rene Rangel was Garden Grove League champion and finished 13th in Southern Section Division II. Santa Margarita junior Steven Murray was 15th in Southern Section Division II.

* The Promising: Huntington Beach freshman Marc Abdou was the two-mile champion at his middle school and has a personal best of 17 minutes 14 seconds over three miles.

* Preseason Top 10: 1. Katella--Four of top five runners from state championship team return; 2. Santiago--Top seven return for Cavaliers; 3. Santa Ana Valley--Five seniors undefeated in league last three seasons; 4. Santa Ana--Starting to rebuild; 5. Dana Hills--Back on top in South Coast League; 6. Esperanza--Bousquet hoping for support; 7. Villa Park--Escobar & Co. could spoil Valley’s run; 8. Newport Harbor--Chris McMillen leads Sailors; 9. El Toro--Will make South Coast League race tight; 10. Mission Viejo--Glory days gone, but not forgotten.

* Key Dates: Sept. 11, Laguna Hills Invitational; Sept. 18, Woodbridge Invitational; Sept. 25, Dana Hills Invitational; Oct. 2, Stanford Invitational; Oct. 16, Orange County Championships at Irvine Park; Oct. 23, Mt. San Antonio College Invitational; Nov. 13, Southern Section prelims at Mt. San Antonio College; Nov. 20, Southern Section finals at Mt. San Antonio College; Nov. 27, State finals at Woodward Park in Fresno.

* League Favorites: Century--Santa Ana Valley; Empire--Katella; Freeway--Sonora; Garden Grove--Santiago; Golden West--Santa Ana; Olympic--Sierra Madre Maranatha; Orange--Brea Olinda; Pacific Coast--Corona del Mar; Sea View--Newport Harbor; Serra--Mater Dei; South Coast--Dana Hills; Sunset--Esperanza.

* Fast Fact: Even though Orange County is considered a hotbed for high school cross-country, some teams won’t hesitate to travel long distances for some different competition. Katella, the Division II state champion, and Esperanza are dedicating much of September to training and traveling to the Great American Cross-Country Invitational in Charlotte, N.C. “We don’t like to run against all the county schools three or four different times,” Katella Coach Mike Cochrane said, “and then see them all again at the county championships.” Edison is heading to New York for the Manhattan Cross-Country Invitational on Oct. 9, and several top county programs will be competing at invitationals in Palo Alto and Fresno during early October.