Redondo Girls Run Away With the Race

At the sound of the starter's gun, the Redondo girls varsity team took control of the Great Cow Run and moved straight into front-pack position. 

And stayed there. Pretty much all of them. Pretty much the whole 3 miles of the cross country invitational Saturday in Cerritos. 

Even though Anique Villegas and Alexis Thibodeau fell off the pace and ran with the chase pack, they made it look like another race, with the two Redondo girls challenging for the lead. In the end, the Sea Hawks swept the first five places for what is called a "perfect score" in cross country team scoring. First place was a tie between Rachel Bush and Lyndsey Mull at 17:25, with Cara Ulizio a second back. 

Laura O'Neill came in fourth at 17:31, Kelly Ryan fitth at 17:32, and Kayla Ferron seventh at 17:37. The sixth-place finisher was Nicole Penick from Saugus High, with the remaining Redondo runners claiming 20th and 26th spots. 

Out of 19 schools and 154 finishers, almost one-third of the runners in the top 26 were from Redondo. The combined team time of 87:19 is a new girls varsity course record. 

Redondo had the best team score with 15, Los Alamitos was second with 89, Saugus was third with 93. Other South Bay teams: Torrance was sixth with 160.   

Freshman Boys Race 

Will Tait and Dustin Herold came through the mile mark in 5:21 in a three-person lead pack. They continued to set the tone of the race with Herold pulling away and winning the race in 16:40, good for the third on the all-time list for freshman boys on this course. Tait finished at fourth, with Tomohiro Yamaya at 11th, Tanner Childs at 12th, and Takahiro Yamaya at 14th, providing the low score to take the first place team title, and set a new freshman boys combined team time record of 86:45. Aaron Zambrango from Saugus was second at 16:43. Kyle Aube from Marina was third at 16:53. 

The Redondo team finished first with 42,  King was second with 100, Torrance was third with 132. Other South Bay teams: South Torrance placed 11th with 273. There were 13 teams and 202 finishers in this race.   

Other Races  

Girls Frosh-Soph Race: Redondo fifth, South Torrance seventh, Torrance 10th. 

Boys Sophomore Race: Torrance fifth, Redondo sixth. 

Boys Varsity Race: Redondo fifth, Torrance 11th, South Torrance 12th. 

Girls Junior Varsity: Torrance fifth, Redondo no score with only 4 runners.

Boys Junior Varsity: Redondo seventh, Torrance 11th, South Torrance 12th.

Doug Boswell is information director for RUHS cross country teams.