Surprising Nordhoff Girls Win by Cross-Country Mile

The theory that the Nordhoff High girls’ cross-country team was in a rebuilding year was officially laid to rest Friday when the Rangers posted a runaway victory in the Division III sweepstakes of the Mt. San Antonio College Invitational.

Nordhoff, which won five state titles during the 1990s, was the runner-up in the state Division IV final last year. But the Nos. 1, 2 and 5 runners on that team graduated and the Nos. 4 and 6 runners transferred over the summer.

That left junior Robin Quinn, Nordhoff’s No. 3 runner in the state meet, as the Rangers’ only experienced varsity competitor.

Nordhoff had so many new faces competing for spots on the varsity before the season that Coach Ken Reeves was actually worried the Rangers’ streak of eight consecutive Frontier League titles might end.

Turned out there was no need to fret.

With freshman Lindsey Owen running better than anyone could have expected and Quinn turning in one solid race after another, Nordhoff easily won the first two league meets of the season and placed fourth in the large schools race of the Clovis Invitational on Oct. 7.

But none of that prepared Reeves for the Rangers’ 62-101 victory over runner-up Bonita on Friday.

“We just came here looking for a lot of our kids to get the experience of running this course,” Reeves said. “We wanted to see what they could do, but we got some big races out of a lot of kids.”

No Ranger ran a bigger race than Owen, who placed second with an 18:26 clocking over the 2.95-mile course.

“She had a big pop,” Reeves said. “I was hoping that she could break 19 minutes.’

Owen finished 16 seconds behind Jenna Timinsky of San Dieguito, but she made up about 10 seconds on Timinsky in the last half of the race.

Nordhoff ran an extremely well-paced race as the Rangers had 141 points based on their places after a mile and 101 based on their positions at 1 3/4 miles.

Quinn finished fourth in 18:49 for Nordhoff, with junior Kate Krumpschmidt 15th in 19:47, freshman Lauren Lansing 19th in 20:08 and junior Julie Kentosh 34th in 20:41 for the Rangers, the No. 6-ranked Division III team in the state.

In the boys’ Division V sweepstakes, senior Tom Kubler of Viewpoint placed second behind Cate junior Henry Hagenbach, and Santa Clara was second and Flintridge Prep third behind Hopi (Ariz.).

Hagenbach led from start to finish, clocking 15:15.

Kubler, defending state Division V champion, pulled to within three seconds of Hagenbach at the two-mile mark. But he could draw no closer and finished in 15:21.

Hopi, Arizona’s defending Division 1-2A champion, totaled 64 points, followed by Santa Clara with 73 and two-time defending state champion Flintridge Prep with 75.