They Just Keep Winning and Winning and Winning and...
Can
you remember what you were doing one year ago around this time? Ask any
of the 7 members of the St. John Bosco cross-country squad and they may
tell you that a year ago they were dreaming of stepping up from cross-country
obscurity to cross-country history. Many of them were most likely trying
to figure if they had what it takes to be included in a long line of teams
before them - all of which had won a league title before them. One year
and one more league title in the "Streak" later the young men
of St. John Bosco discovered they had more then enough of what it takes
to step into the spot light once again to claim their twelfth league title
in a row. Despite many of the new faces at the varsity level - 6 of 7 new
faces to be exact - the Brave harriers were the epitome of the cliche "if
you put your mind to it you can accomplish anything." Starting in
June this group of determined runners set out to tackle what not many people
thought they could not. What transpired in the 5 months since was the most
cohesive unit to come out of the program in years. It was through their
hard work and support of each other that they were able to turn away any
doubters and uphold a 12 year tradition to claim the league title outright.
Setting the tone for the team on this day out where junior Victor Bonilla and senior Jonathan Batres. Both teammates ran a thrilling race to place second and fourth in league respectively - in doing so they also managed to run the #2 and #3 best times in school history at Central Park. Bonilla's time also places him tops amongst juniors all time. Backing up Bonilla and Batres was the junior duo of Justin Martinez and Timothy Barreto. Both individuals improved 35 and 30 seconds from the league cluster meet respectively, as Martinez also placed 8th overall to claim an all league spot. Barreto makes the all time school junior list at central park tied for 7th, while Martinez places at 6th. Sophomore Brett McCoy finished in 16th place for the team while running to a 2 minute, 14 second improvement over last year at this race. McCoy's time was good enough to place him 6th on the all time Central Park sophomore list.
All in all the varsity squad ran a team time of 80:22 which ties the mark set by the 2000 team that ended the season with a 3rd place finish in CIF.
Other performances of note were senior John Woscek and junior Geoff Garces taking 1-2 in the junior varsity race and freshman Michael Fletcher running to a sub 18 personal best to earn all league frosh-soph honors as he placed 5th in 17:55.
Next up for the Braves will be CIF-Southern Section Prelims on Saturday, November 12 at Mt. San Antonio College.