Division 2 Girls
Saugus senior Mariah Castillo is one of the top Division 2 returners at State. (Clark Kranz)
Runner to Beat: Haley Herberg, Capistrano Valley
Team to Beat: Claremont
Capistrano Valley's Haley Herberg appears to be peaking at the perfect time. (Orlando Ramirez/USA Today)
Individual Competition
Capistrano Valley senior Haley Herberg enters the CIF State Championships at Woodward Park coming off a CIF-Southern Section Division 2 championship in which she ran the fastest time of the day across five divisions on the flat three-mile Riverside City Championship Course.
Herberg, 21st at State last year and the No. 12 returner from the 2016 final, has the state's top times at both three-miles and 5,000 meters this season.
In winning her first Section division title, she beat Saugus senior Mariah Castillo by nearly eight seconds and Anaheim Canyon Senior Sara Leonard by 38. This is Herberg's fourth trip to State. Her best finish was ninth as a sophomore. She has won six of eight races this season at three miles and was fourth in her only posted competition at the 5K distance when she put down a 17:18.70 PR in the Clovis Invitational run on the State Championship course at Woodward Park. The top three in that race all compete in Division 1.
Leonard and Castillo are the top two returning finishers from last year's State final. Leonard was third and Castillo was fifth.
Oakmont senior Alize Hartke, the Sac-Joaquin Section champion, has the second-fastest 5K time in the division and will be running in the State final for the fourth consecutive year.
Junior Sydney Hwang was fifth overall at the Section D2 final. She leads team favorite Claremont, the defending champion. Hwang was 12th last year among team-scoring runners and is the top returning runner for Claremont.
Others to watch in Girls D2 include Mission Viejo junior Kelli Hines (fourth at the SS final), Sacramento St. Francis senior Sydney Vandegrift (13th overall at State in 2016; second to Hartke in the SJ final), Capistrano Valley senior Alyssa Bautista (12th overall last year; sixth at the SS final),
Team Competition
Claremont, ranked eighth nationally in the latest Flo50 Girls Team Rankings, is the defending champion. Saugus has won eight of the last 10 CIF State D2 titles with runner-up finishes in 2013 and last year. While Castillo and Hwang figure to be near the front, the team battle will be decided well behind them.
At the Section final, junior Kalinda Reynolds (15), sophomore Azalea Segura-Mora (16), freshman Annie Gushue (19) and senior Tess Rounds (22) secured the victory for Claremont while junior Jacqueline Cascione (11th), freshman Hannah Fredericks (27th), junior Amaya Aguilar (11th) and senior MacKenna Park (35th) scored for Saugus.
Oakmont's Alize Hartke has the state's second-fastest 5K time in Division 2. (Clark Kranz)
State Leaders: Three Mile Run
State Leaders: 5,000 Meters