SD Prep Sports

SD Prep Sports: Cross Country

Mustangs starting to hit stride in early season

By Phillip Brents

Posted Sept. 29, 2004

How does one follow up a championship season? So far, the Otay Ranch High cross country team appears to have put its best foot forward.

Head coach Ian Cumming’s coaching philosophy is straightforward and simple: strong effort, coupled with a positive attitude, will produce great things.

It has already proven to work.

At left: Otay Ranch's Matt Danielson sprints toward the finish line at this year's South Bay Invitational.

Otay Ranch stepped off its season Sept. 10 at the Mustang Phair Company Invitational at Rohr Park with fifth-place finishes in both the boys and girls varsity Silver Division standings. Jessi Tinsley took first-place honors in the girls junior varsity Silver Division race, finishing the 2.2-mile course in 11:36 to help the Mustangs engineer an overall second-place team finish behind team champion La Jolla.

Ernesto Valdez was the boys varsity team’s top finisher at the Mustang Invitational, placing 13th in 17:59. Following him in order across the finish line were Ricky Pimentel (27th, 18:26), Ryan Matias (36th, 18:49), Matt Danielson (37th, 18:55), Ivan Dallet (43rd, 19:04), Jesse Matias (45th, 19:06) and Mike Denman (47th, 19:15).

Top girls varsity runners included Jazmine Schoonmaker (13th, 15:40), Natalie Dygert (26th, 16:23) and Jennifer Amos (33rd, 17:03).

Improvement was quick to follow as Otay Ranch placed second among 24 boys teams entered in the Sierra Nevada Invitational as the Mustangs traveled to Nevada. Otay Ranch edged Basic by one point for second place behind team champion Silverado. Valdez was sixth among individuals with a time of 14:10.2 for 2.5 miles while Danielson was 12th in 14:18.6. Pimentel (15th, 14:26.3), Ryan Matias (21st, 14:41.3) and Dallet (26th, 14:46.7) rounded out the varsity team’s top five scorers.

Elan Sorrell captured first place in the junior varsity race, placing 26th overall, in 14:46.3 as Otay Ranch captured the boys JV title.

The girls team managed a sixth-place finish — just nine points out of fifth place and 53 points ahead of the seventh-place team. With 145 finishers, Mustang runners finished in the top 60 percent of the race. The top five Otay Ranch scorers — Estefania Fregoso, Amos, Rachael Medina, Tina Poole and Lauren Seibel — placed in the top third of the race.

Tinsley placed first among girls JV runners, 24th overall, with a time of 18:36.4.

Otay Ranch’s toughest test of the early season came at the 31st South Bay Invitational Sept. 24 at Rohr Park that featured seven of the top-ranked teams in the San Diego Section. The Mustangs finished ninth in the boys varsity team standings and won the boys JV team title with a 46-point bulge ahead of perennial Metro Conference power Bonita Vista.

Danielson was 23rd among 132 finishers. Jesse Matias and Denman were second and fifth, respectively, in the boys JV race.

Tinsley continued her strong start by engineering a second-place finish in the girls JV race.