Dana Hills Invitational Highlights
(recap by Ben Crawford)
Notorious for being one of the fastest courses in the state of California, the Dana Hills Invitational draws teams from all over Southern California. Being in the first half of the season, teams and individuals often use the meet to springboard themselves onto the state rankings scene. Last year we saw sophomore Jack Landgraf burst onto the scene after he ran an astonishing 14:28 which gave him the fastest time on the day. This year as a junior, he repeated as champion, but did not own the spotlight. San Juan Hill's sophomore Jacob Aries covered the 3 mile course in 14 minutes and 42 seconds, good enough for a 2nd place finish. This monster performance showed that his 14:57 at the Great Cow Run three weeks ago was no fluke. Aries, however, was not the only underclassmen to turn a few heads. Alexis Garcia, the sophomore from Newport Harbor ran 14:49, a time exactly 60 seconds faster than his previous PR of 15:49 which was set at the Laguna Hills Invitational. Home team Dana Hills put two more runners in the top 10 with John Turner and Brandon Hough running 14:51 and 14:53 respectively.
On the girls side, it was a La Costa Canyon affair as Mckenna Brown and Kristin Fahy went 1-2 in the D1/Sweepstakes Race. Both came away with new PR's after running 17:02 and 17:03. Following up an ultra impressive race last weekend at Woodbridge, Haley Herberg of Capistrano Valley ran a solo 17:05 in the girls junior race. Having run under 17:10 for the second time this year, Herberg is ready to compete with the best on the state and national level. A huge surprise came from Hannah Hartwell of Carlsbad who had run 18:25 just two week prior. The sophomore placed 6th in the D1 Race clocking 17:29, a 56 second improvement of her previous PR. San Diego Section showed they can run with the big names of Southern Section, recording six of the fastest ten times of the day.
