La Jolla Boys, Scripps Ranch Girls win Western League Titles; Kelly
Grimes, Brian Sullivan take individual honors.

It's been an up-and-down year for nearly every team in the
Western League this fall, and the roller-coaster ride continued on
Wedesday afternoon in the Western League finals at Balboa Park's
Morley Field.
La Jolla's boys team put together a great team effort to beat a
strong Scripps Ranch squad, scoring 40 points to Scripps' 47.
The Scripps Ranch girls scored 40 points to outdistance an
improving University City team.
La Jolla's boys and Scripps' girls both won league titles, which
are based equally on dual meet results and league finals results.
Individual titles were taken by Scripps Ranch senior Kelly
Grimes, in 18:30 for the fast, 3.0-mile course; and St. Augustine
senior Brian Sullivan, who clocked 15:28.
Grimes started to open a gap on her rivals before the mile
mark, and she won the race by 0:37 seconds. Sullivan, by contrast,
had to contend with a top-notch group that battled him throughout.
La Jolla's David Dunbar, Scripps' Michael Stokes and Saint
teammate Adam Greene all ran strongly in a close pack through
most of the race.
The meet culminated a year in which most of the usual league
contenders had to deal with a series of misfortunes.
In boys racing, Scripps, La Jolla and St. Augustine had all
traded wins with each other in dual meets.
La Jolla, coached by Chuck Boyer, has a reputation of being a
strong pack team. Team leader Dunbar, a senior, was third in the
finals, and his scoring teammates all finished within 1:17, which is a
bit more spread out than usual for the Vikings. Part of the reason for
that was Dunbar's strong effort; La Jolla's 2-3-4 runners came
across the line in a 17-second span.
Scripps, by contrast, has been paced all year by a pair of strong
front-runners, Stokes and junior Patrick Grimes. Stokes was the
runner-up in the finals, and Grimes was fifth, but the next three
Scripps runners were sharply improved from earlier efforts. In fact,
the gap from one to five was 1:28 -- not sensational, but a great
grouping for the Falcons. In some duals in mid-season (such as the
loss to La Jolla), Scripps Ranch had a gap of about 1:20 to 1:40 just
between their number two and number three runners. Such a gap
was big enough to allow teams like La Jolla to drive their team bus
through it.
St. Augustine, a contender for the title after the dual season,
was never in the championship race, despite the usual excellent races
from their great one-two punch of Sullivan and Greene, who was
fourth in 15:55. The Saints, the smallest school in the league, have
battled the numbers game all year. Their normal three-four runners,
Colin Donnelly and Alfonso Espinoza, were unable to contribute.
Donnelly, who was nursing an injury, had to drop out. Espinoza
went out about 20 seconds too fast in the first mile, and was not a
factor after that.
University City has been the most rapidly improving team in
the league. In the final week of duals, UC came within a point of
Scripps Ranch. In the finals, the Centurions were third, with a
bunched pack that spanned just 0:31 seconds from one to five.
In next week's CIF meet, St. Augustine will be the favorites in
Division IV; La Jolla will be the top team in Division III (with
University City as a darkhorse); and Scripps Ranch will be a top
contender in Division II.
It's been a down year for many of the Western League's girls
teams. You could make a pretty good team out of the girls that
weren't competing on Wednesday; including Emily McFarland and
Kristina Stasko of Scripps Ranch; Jackie Ott, Michelle Barrack and
Courtney Baird of University of San Diego; Shelby Stanger of La
Jolla; Merlyn Diaz of Hoover; and Jenny Bergen of University City.
Some of the girls, such as Bergen, Stasko and Stanger, are no
longer competing in cross country. Baird has transferred to Helix,
where she is having a great year. Uni's Ott and Barrack have been
hurt during much of the season, although Barrack, at least, is
expected back for the CIF meet.
Whatever the reason, that is a lot of mssing front-line
firepower. There are years when the Western League girls race can
match up in quality with any other league. That's not the case this
year, although the hard-working Grimes is a top-quality runner.
With Ott and Barrack out of the picture, an excellent Uni team
was crippled, although the second tier of runners all ran excellent
races. Even without their one-two runners, Uni had finishers in
eighth, tenth and 13th. The team is expected to be a strong
contender in Division III in the CIF meet, especially if Barrack can be
effective.
Scripps' coach Bob Oliver has put together a very solid
supporting cast behind Grimes, with much-improved Angeline Spain
taking third in the race in 19:09. The Falcons also had Shanna
Cohen, a transfer from New York, finish a strong sixth; and frosh
Grace Anderson just missed an all-league spot, in 11th.
La Jolla has been plagued with illnesses all year. Frosh Desiree
Leek was the team leader, taking fourth in the finals in 19:29.
Morgan Romine, the team's ace when healthy, has missed virtually
the entire year with mono. In her first race back, she was a
respectable seventh. Another varsity member, Julia Otis, has battled
illness most of the year.
University City's girls, like the boys, have been improving fast
under the coaching of Jim McCarthy. Soph Katherine Ziegler was
second in the finals, in 19:07, and the Centurions were the first team
to get their number five runner across. The effort was good enough
to place second in the meet, with 54 points.


The Results:
Wednesday, November 12. At Morley Field, Balboa Park. Con-
ditions: cool weather; no rain. Course for boys and girls is 3.0 miles,
mostly flat and fast.

Girls Varsity :
1 to 5:
18:30 Kelly Grimes, Scripps Ranch
19:07 Katherine Ziegler, University City
19:09 Angeline Spain, SR
19:29 Desiree Leek, La Jolla
19:39 Amanda Powers, Mission Bay
6 to 10:
19:50 Shanna Cohen, SR
19:53 Morgan Romine, LJ
19:55 Ronya Shatila, University of SD
19:57 Leslie Crews, UC
19:57 Amanda Mullinex, USD
11 to 15:
20:16 Grace Anderson, SR
20:28 Tarisha Clophus, UC
20:31 Siouxsiee Gistaro, USD
20:32 Julie Babonis, USD
20:37 Kim Saam, UC
16 to 20:
20:37 Rebecca McKeown, UC
20:39 Carly Votolato, UC
20:43 Claire Beck, Our Lady of Peace
20:53 Lisa Nguyen, SR
20:56 Sunny Nordmarken, LJ
21 to 25:
21:03 Leslie Berenstein, LJ
21:04 Lauren Severs, UC
21:14 Jackie Overton, UC
21:26 Vanessa Vanover, SR
21:31 Laura Chan, UC
Team Scores:
Scripps Ranch 40
University City 54
University of San Diego 72
La Jolla 76
Our Lady of Peace 135
Mission Bay 141
Hoover, no entrants

Boys Varsity:
1 to 5:
15:28 Brian Sullivan, St. Augustine
15:30 Michael Stokes, Scripps Ranch
15:38 David Dunbar, La Jolla
15:55 Adam Greene, StA
16:07 Patrick Grimes, SR
6 to 10:
16:14 Ray Chacon, LJ
16:25 Eric Koster, LJ
16:30 Omar Zavala, Mission Bay
16:31 Brandon Behr, LJ
16:38 Andy Delery, SR
11 to 15:
16:38 Marco de la Huerta, University City
16:42 Omid Berkadehi, UC
16:43 Raphael Machado, SR
16:47 Edgar Hernandez, UC
16:55 Nate Lopez, LJ
16 to 20:
16:57 Matt Granger, LJ
16:58 Chris Sandoval, SR
17:00 Bobby Anderson, SR
17:03 Steve Doane, LJ
17:05 Charles McKeown, UC
21 to 25:
17:08 Alejandro Mones, LJ
17:09 Jon O'Connor, UC
17:14 Kevin Correnti, StA
17:15 Jonathan Hester, SR
17:23 Matthew Waite, UC
Team Scores:
La Jolla 40
Scripps Ranch 47
University City 78
St. Augustine 87
Mission Bay 128
University of San Diego 171
Hoover, non-scoring individuals