 | | | Photos Gint Federas | | | | | | With the dual-meet portion of the season officially over, a busy month of postseason meets now looms for the Miramonte, Acalanes and Campolindo track teams.
The onslaught begins when the three programs take part in the DAL Trials, hosted at Campolindo on May 6 - the Finals take place a week later.
"We have outstanding individuals, but we actually have a very outstanding team - especially with the girls," said Acalanes head coach John Crain after the girls squad went 4-0 in DAL Foothill Conference dual meets.
The boys team went 3-1 in dual meets and both halves of the roster - especially the girls side - received an unexpected boost from the class of young Dons.
"We had some freshmen that came in that really surprised us this year who have been very contributory in terms of varsity performance," Crain said.
The Mats, who figure to challenge the Dons for the DAL girls league crown, have three standouts in sophomore Cassy Haskell, senior Rosie Cruz and senior Hannah Fishlow. Both Haskell and Fishlow were finalists at last spring's NCS Meet of Champions, with the former advancing to the State meet in the 1,600 meter.
On the boys side, junior James Bull and senior Jonathan Fierro head up the pack.
"Our top two distance guys have been phenomenal," head coach Tristan Tool said. "They've dropped (their times) a lot from what they dropped last year and both of them are running extremely well and both of them plan on making at least NCS Meet of Champions and I think that they both have a good shot at making State as well."
This year's MOC will take place on May 26-27 at Edwards Stadium at UC Berkeley - one week after the NCS Tri-Valley Championships at Foothill High School in Pleasanton on May 20 and one week before the CIF State Championships on June 2-3 at Buchanan High School in Fresno.
While both of the Mats varsity teams boast State aspirants, what most impresses Tool is the strength of the program at large.
"We've had probably our best season - especially in the distance, mid-distance group - as far as depth goes," Tool said. "We're not strangers to having one or two really good kids, but rarely do we have good depth coming from a small school."
For Cougars head coach Chuck Woolridge, one of the best parts of the spring has been tracking the development of the emerging members of the team.
"We've got a nice group of younger athletes with some kids that I think have the potential to be great varsity athletes in the future," Woolridge said.
"This year, with the number of seniors that we had graduate last year - especially on our boys side - we've been really focused on developing our new crop of talent," Woolridge added.
Against that backdrop, Campolindo still has a crew of varsity runners poised to enjoy impressive postseason showings. That list consists of Niki Moore on the boys side and Lauren Williams and Juliet Arnswald and Hana Sun and Bella Chao from the girls roster.
"Those athletes, I think their goal is to make it through to the Meet of Champions and potentially compete for a State meet berth," Woolridge said.
Moore, who won the 800-meter title at last year's MOC - and who has added the 1,600 to his race list this spring - stands out as the Cougars' most prominent runner.
"Niki is certainly our top athlete in terms of potential to make the State meet and run competitive times against the rest of the state (field)."
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Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA