SD Prep Sports

SD Prep Sports: Cross Country

Helix CC teams excel at state meet

By Phillip Brents

Posted Dec. 2, 2002

The Helix High School girls cross country team added an appropriate
exclamation mark to its season by turning in the program's second
consecutive top 10 finish at last Saturday's state championship meet. The
Highlanders placed 10th in the Division II finals this year after earning a
meteoric seventh-place finish the season before.

Helix, which placed second in the previous weekend¹s San Diego Section
divisional championships to qualify for the state meet, finished with a team
score of 264 points in Fresno to trail team champion Sultana (59 points) and
seventh-place San Pasqual (225 points) ‹ this year¹s San Diego Section
Division II champions.

Sophomore Jamie Marliere, the team's top runner at both the Grossmont
Conference and San Diego Section championship meets, continued her torrid
end of season push by once again leading Helix on the course with a 26th
place time of 18:49 for the 5K distance. Senior Olga Gorobets followed in
46th place with a time of 19:18. Junior Evon Willingham (58th, 19:32),
sophomore April Montgomery (81st, 19:53) and senior Michelle Jensen (122nd,
20:34) rounded out the Highlanders' top five scorers in the field of 192
finishers. Seniors Rachel Farrior (131st, 20:48) and Amy Johnson-Westlie
(147th, 21:12) completed the team¹s seven-runner contingent.

The Helix boys team, which made its first journey northward to the state
meet since 1991, also punctuated the season in frenetic fashion by finishing
12th. Junior Babey Wagnew led the Highlanders with an eighth-place overall
finish in 15:24, followed by teammates Garrick Frew (64th, 16:31), Drew
Tidmore (97th, 17:02), Juan Torres (135th, 17:35), Ahmed Ali (147th, 17:41),
Allen Feldman (167th, 18:12) and Tim McGraw (186th, 18:48).

Among the conference's seven individual qualifiers, Santana junior Erin
Price posted the top female performance with a 19th place finish in the
girls Division II race with her time of 18:42.

Grossmont sophomore Randee Meek finished 80th overall with a time of 19:53
in the girls Division II race while West Hills junior Elaine Gillespie was
29th in the girls Division I race in 19:00, followed by Granite Hills senior
Cindy Walker (60th, 19:24) in the field of 196 runners.

In the boys Division II race, Valhalla senior Kip Madden finished 35th in
16:03, followed by El Capitan senior Benny Gandolfo, a three-time state
qualifier, in 43rd place in 16:10 and Monte Vista senior Dan Driscoll in
45th place in 16:11. The top 50 performances were impressive in a field of
193 finishers.