WALNUT – Century senior Monserrat Santillan-Silva entered her first cross country meet as a sophomore in 2023.
Last year she finished 56th in the Division 4 championships race at the CIF Southern Section Finals.
On Saturday, Santillan-Silva became a CIF-SS champion.
Satillan-Silva won the Division 4 race with a time of 16 minutes, 43.3 seconds at the CIF-SS Championships at Mt. San Antonio College.
She finished 17 seconds ahead of JSerra’s Maya Pawowlicz, whose second-place finish helped JSerra cruise to its fourth straight CIF-SS girls cross country championship.
Santillan-Silva said her first cross country goal was to finish a race in under 18 minutes.
“I did better than that,” she said. “And I kept improving. That made me feel like I could do this. Seeing all the improvement made me want to work harder.”
Santillan-Silva’s plan was to take an early lead Saturday.
“I didn’t want to get boxed in,” she said. “I knew I had some very good competitors in this. My strategy was to just stay up there and let it rip.”
Irvine senior Summer Wilson obliterated the competition in the Division 2 race. Her winning time of 15:14.5 is the fastest time ever in the nation by a girl.
Courses differ greatly in difficulty because some, even within Orange County, have more hills, some have the same number of hills but vary in steepness while others are comparatively flat. The “rain course” at Mt. SAC was used Saturday for safety reasons after the plentiful amount of rain that fell in Southern California in recent days.
Still, Wilson’s performance was impressive and makes her one to watch next Saturday at the CIF State Championships at Woodward Park in Fresno.
The CIF-SS finals course ended inside Hilmer Lodge Stadium, with one lap on the track completing every race. When Wilson finished the lap and crossed the finish line with her long strides that have carried her to numerous victories, she was the only runner in the stadium.
Wilson knew she was on a brisk pace as she eyed her split times on scoreboards along the course and the public address announcer’s updates in and near the stadium.
“I was really happy when I saw my splits,” said Wilson, who signed with Duke. “I knew I was running really fast. When I heard the announcer saying my times I was really excited.”
JSerra’s girls won the Division 4 team championship. The Lions won a CIF-SS title for the fourth year in a row. They also won CIF-SS titles four years in a row in 2010-13.
The only Orange County school to win five consecutive CIF-SS girls cross country team championships is Corona del Mar, 2004-08.
In addition to Pawlowicz’s second-place finish at 17:00.0, the Lions had Brooklyn Tennant in third place, Reese Holley in fifth, Hayden Kroger in eighth and Chloe Elbaz in 10th.
JSerra totaled 28 points to second-place Big Bear’s 112.
Still, Elbaz felt her team could have done better, perhaps with a score that could have been in the lower 20s.
“We’re not satisfied with it,” said Elbaz, who signed with UCLA. “But we’re keeping our heads up and staying focused on next weekend.”
Santa Margarita’s Carol Dye and Taryn Coulston finished 1-2 in the Division 3 race to lead the Eagles to the team championship. Dye finished in 16:39.7, and Coulston right behind her at 16:40.1.
Dye said Coulston’s strong performance inspired her.
“One big thing for me was my teammate Taryn next to me, especially in the second mile,” Dye said. “The competition we have makes us feed off each other.”
Woodbridge junior Aidan Antonio won the boys Division 2 race. Antonio had a big lead through the first 2.5 miles, then held on at a very tight finish – Antonio’s 14:06.4 to the 14:06.7 of second-place Lyle Mideiros of Claremont.
Antonio admitted that he spent too much energy too early – opening up a seven-second lead at the end of the first mile – while others in the race conserved their fuel to make a charge toward the end. He said afterward that his big lead shrinking so dramatically did not shock him
“I think I will learn from this experience and work on that last mile,” he said. “Those other competitors were cashing in on the last mile. I knew they were coming up behind me, and I was slowly dying so I’m not surprised.”
Dana Hills has had a history of outstanding distance runners, including most recently Evan Noonan who won multiple CIF Southern Section and CIF State championships in cross country and track and field before graduating this past spring and moving on to Stanford.
Dana Hills senior Oliver Hunter continued the tradition Saturday. In another close finish, Hunter edged South Pasadena’s Michael Scarince 14:20.7 to 14:20.8 in the Division 3 race.
As expected, Beckman and San Clemente were in a close battle for the Division 1 boys championship. Beckman got the win, 102 points to San Clemente’s 106.
San Clemente’s Mattheus Dos Santos and Yohan Anderson finished third and fifth, respectively. Beckman’s Mason Nguyen was ninth and his teammate Ryan Barris was 13th.
Nguyen credited San Clemente and the athletes of other schools for motivating his team.
“We had a bunch of great runners from different teams,” Nguyen said. “Without those other teams pushing us, I don’t think we’d be where we are. Competition is everything.”
El Toro’s girls repeated as Division 2 team champion. The Chargers tallied 68 points to second-place Santa Margarita’s 71.
The Trabuco Hills girls team finished second to Mira Costa in Division 1. The Mustangs were led by a second-place finish by Mille Bayles. Tesoro’s girls finished third in the Division 2 team standings.
