Foothill Tech’s Cross Country team dominated the course in California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) finals on Saturday, Nov. 18. With the girls coming in first overall and the boys in third, both of the teams will be moving on to the state meet taking place in Fresno on Saturday, Nov. 25.
The girls’ team scored 70 which was an exceptional 30 points less than the second place team.
“A lot of the girls did really well and had really good races,” Gretchen Scherri ‘20 said. “Everyone just stepped up to in order to earn the points [they] needed to win.”
As for the boys, even though they earned the third place slot in the CIF Finals with a team score of 148, Chris Kutcha ‘18 believes that “the team did not perform […] to the caliber [they] would have liked to be at.” Kutcha came in first place for Foothill Technology and seventh overall (15:44.1), but he still did not feel that he “performed well.”
“It felt more like I had to push through the race instead of just racing it,” Kutcha said.
Alec Llamas ‘18 came in second for the Dragons and 17th overall (16:06.0) followed by Trey Caswell ‘18 in 34th (16:26.2), Ryan Bova ‘18 in 40th (16:34.7) and Clayton Brossia ‘18 in 50th (16:39.3).
Scherri earned a new personal record of 19:00.7. She came in 29th as the final scorer for Foothill behind Lauren Kearney ‘19 in 19th (18:37.8), Olivia Burton ‘18 in 17th (18:27.9), Kennedy Gomez ‘19 in 14th (18:21.9) and Blythe Blakeman ‘20 who came in sixth place overall and first for the team (18:05.4).
Coach Ken Reeves stated that Kutcha and Blakeman stood out to him in this meet because they both “earned first [for the] team.”
Along with talent and dedication, Kutcha and Blakeman are strong competitors because of the way that they train. According to Scherri, the workouts that Reeves creates for the team have helped her improve as a runner. She feels that they are successful partially because Reeves “keeps [them] on track” and “has always believed in [them].”
Note on Cross Country Scoring: A team’s score is calculated by adding the points earned by their first five runners to finish. Those runners earn points based on their overall place in the race, first place earning one point, second earning two points, etc. The team with the lowest total score wins.
