2009 NCS: Girls Repeat as Champions, Boys 8th

The Maria Carrillo Girls defended their NCS Div III title at Hayward yesterday, while the Boys finished 8th in an extremely competitive field.

Boys: were led by Gus Greenstein's 14th place finish.  Gus just missed qualifying for State as an individual (he was the fastest Empire runner at the meet that failed to qualify).  As expected, the team competition was very tough, and the Pumas missed finishing 4th and a trip to State by a 45 points.  As it turned out, it would have taken an ideal scenario to break into the top 4 - and that was not meant to be this Saturday.  As mentioned, the Div 3 race was super competitive - had the Boys raced up in the Div 2 race they would have finished 2nd and qualified for a State berth (finished ahead of D2 2nd place Santa Rosa in composite scoring).

Overall, the Boys finished the year as the 15th fastest NCS team among the 99 teams in all of the 5 divisions. Not as high as we hoped, perhaps, but a very respectable result that everyone can be proud of.

Girls: speaking of ideal sceanrios, the girls put together a very special team performance.  The expected close team contest with Campolindo and Acalanes (ranked 6th and 7th in California) did not play out as all 5 of our scorers managed finishes in the top 14.  MCHS won with a score of 39 to Campo's 74 and 3rd place Acalanes' 78.  Seniors Lauren Curtin (2nd place) and Cara Curtin (6th place) brought home strong performances to lead the Pumas and effectively neutralized Campo's accomplished #1 and #2 runners (MCHS 8 points to Campo's 7).   The  35 points winning margin was created by the performance of our #3, 4, and 5 runners: Lauren Kraus (7th), Heidi Thiele (10th), and Brenna Thigpen (14th).  These 3 runners were the fastest #3,4, and 5 of any of the 76 scoring teams in all 5 divisional races on the day.  In fact, Heidi and Brenna both beat the #3 runners of all 76 teams except for one (Monte Vista in the Div I race).

Given this, it is probably not surprising that the Puma Girls were the fastest of all the 76 teams on the day, and by a fairly substantial margin (interesting to note that 3 of the top 4 NCS teams were in the Div III race).  Their combined team time of 93:25 was 20 seconds faster at Hayward than last years Puma squad that went on to take 3rd at State.  This is also the 7th fastest team performance for any NCS girls team in the 9 years of racing at Hayward High.

Other superlatives: Lauren Kraus was the fastest freshman girl in the Div III race, and the 2nd fastest in any of the 5 divisional races.  Brenna Thigpen was the 3rd fastest frosh in the D3 race, and the 8th fastest overall.  Heidi Thiele was the 3rd fastest soph girl in the D3 race, and the 10th fastest overall.

This North Coast Section title was the Puma girls' 4th in the last 6 years.  The years they did not win they finished 2nd (to Campolindo each time).

NEXT: California State Championships at Clovis on Saturday, November 28th.  The MCHS girls are currently ranked #3 in California in D3 behind perennial Southern Section powers Corona del Mar and Orange Lutheran.  These are the same two teams that finished ahead of the Pumas at State last year.