Poop Out Hill, the Switchbacks, Reservoir Hill, the Gauntlet, the Valley Loop, these are all parts of the largest cross county meet in the nation.
Mention any one of these features to a true cross country fan anywhere in the country, and they’ll know that you’re talking about the Mount San Antonio College (Mt. SAC) cross country meet. Mt. SAC is in Walnut, California, a little over 100 miles north of San Diego. Over the years, we’ve taken teams to this meet and have had success. However, since COVID, we haven’t made the trip. Until this year.
On successive weeks, Mt. SAC hosts JC and middle school meets, with the high school competition on the second week. With over 12,000 runners from over 500 schools across the country, things are a bit crowded. They can’t get all the races done in one day, so they break it up with Division 3, 4, and 5 on Friday and Division 1 and 2 on Saturday. Even with two days of racing, they must start a new race every 8 to 14 minutes, depending on the level of the races. This means that at any time during the day, three races are running over the 3-mile course. This is possible with the latest advancements in computer timing and a “take out” area where runners who don’t meet a time for that point in the course are removed from the race. Harsh, yes, but coaches were informed about this.
There were lots of divisions, but we decided to enter two varsity teams, girls and boys. It’s a crapshoot as to which of the other teams will be in your race, but our races were competitive. Our boys placed tenth out of 32 teams, and the girls third out of 21, to pick up one of the coveted Mt. SAC finishing plaques and medals for each of the seven team members.
Our top girl’s performer was Morgan Maske who placed second, at 20:15, twenty seconds back from the winner over the three-mile course that everyone ran. She was followed by Maeson Everett (23:53), Vivian Scott ( 24:09), Lily Humphrey (24:13), and Carly Devore, to complete the scoring. Our pushers (sixth and seventh) were Nadia Roos and Annalei Berke.
Our boys started their race eight minutes prior to the girl’s start, so both of our teams were on the course at the same time. Our top finisher in that race was Vincent Russo who placed 19th out of 169 finishers with a time of 17:36. He was followed by Nathan Ayan, Andrew Buck, Anton Youngblood, and Ziggy Raunig to complete the scoring. Our pusher was Oscar Alicandri.
