DEL MAR -- Most years, Santa Fe Christian's boys beating Francis Parker 22-35 Thursday would be the big story, matching two of the state's Top 10 small school teams.
But, while that's still news, the spotlight instead was the fact this was the first high school sports action in the San Diego Section since last March and the first cross country competition locally since the section championships on November of 2019.
Actually, a junior varsity race was the first real head-to-head action and before Parker's Kenan Pala captured the boys race in 15:54.99, SFC's Revere Schmidt dipped under 20-minutes (19:59.02) to win the girls showdown, leading the Eagles to a 16-41 victory at San Dieguito County Park's hastily drawn up 3-mile course.
It was just over a week ago that section schools were given the green light to practice and the Parker-SFC Coastal League meet was one of five on the day.
Pala pulled away from SFC's Alex Bobowski to win but both were celebrating as the Eagles downed short-handed Parker, the league champion the last two years.
"It was very nostalgic and nice," said Pala, a junior who a year ago finished fourth in the state championships. "The last time we went head-to-head was in 2019 and now we open the season going head-to-head in 2021.
"The important thing is to get back to racing.
"We've never had all this time to train and after missing all of track and cross country this fall, it was tough to get back into it. This was fun to pull each other -- it helped all of us. We're rivals and it was fun to start with a dual meet against them."
One would suspect Pala was confident going in, but not overly so.
"I thought about it last night and again this morning," he said of finally getting to run. "I had pre-race adrenalin and what a rush."
Bobowski, who was clocked in 16:28.73, could hardly wait for the start.
"This was mano-a-mano," said the junior who was fourth in the section and 11th at state in 2019. "It's cool to have this rivalry. After a mile I realized we were actually competing again.
"I was injured all summer so this (the delay from August to February) was a blessing in disguise. It was a great feeling, especially getting that runner's high."
SFC actually beat Parker in the dual meet and in an invitational a year ago before Parker came on at the end to win the league and section titles en route to a third place finish at the State Meet.
As for the multi-sport talented sophomore Schmidt, who has opted to run this winter rather than swim, it was a relatively easy victory over junior teammate Eloise Martenson, who battled through a knee injury to place second in 21:31.33.
"I've been training for a while so it's good to race," said Schmidt. "In training you can relax and talk, ask each other 'how are you doing?' But racing you test yourself, you push yourself.
"I was nervous at the beginning but running with Eloise made it easy. She's my training partner. This course had a huge hill but whew, the downhill after was nice. Breaking 20 was a good start."
Naturally, the meet itself presented a ton of hurdles for SFC coach Demian Kloer.
Since the Eagles don't race at San Dieguito County Park, he had to map out a 3-mile course after the school rented the facility at a nominal price. First, it was too long and then 15-yards too short, so he adjusted.
All runners were required to wear masks until the start of the race and all others, coaches, spectators and officials, wore masks the entire time. For a dual meet, there was a fairly large and vocal crowd, which also was required to mask up and socially distance.
Special insurance had to be purchased and to make sure the runners went the right way, Kloer rode his bike ahead of the group for the first of three one-mile loops.
Parker coach Matt Schellenberg was the starter.
He lined up between the two teams and shouted "runners to your marks-go!"
Cross country was back.
