Girls Team Advances to CCS Championship

The Girls Cross Country team finished 6th at the WCAL Championship Wednesday qualifying for the CCS Championship by hitting the automatic time standard.  Outside of Morgan Lira who ran away from the field to win her first individual WCAL Championship it was a rough day for the Warriors.  "I really don't know what happened," Emily Blaha said of the team's performance.  "It was just a weird day."

It was a weird day indeed.  The weather was hovering around 80-85 degrees, which shouldn't be that bad but with high humidity and not being acclimatized to the warmer temperatures it made for a rough day.  To top it off Emily Blaha took a bad spill while doing a stride and banged up her hip and knee and Kellianne Connolly was under the weather battling a cold.

Emily Blaha was the #2 runner for the Warriors finishing a respectable 10th place in 19:56.  She was followed by her sister Sarah Blaha who has been a pleasant surprise for the warriors this season finishing 35th in 21:40.  Jessica Xu (21:49) set a personal best for the course was 4th for the Warriors.  Rounding out the scoring team was Isabel Garcia (22:17) who is continuing her comeback from a hamstring injury suffered in September.

"While the team result was not what we expect or are capable of, this team is very talented and and has the heart to get it done next week," said Coach Small.  "The important thing is we move onto CCS, and there anything can happen." 

You don't need to look very far to find a team that squeaks into the playoffs and wins the whole thing.  The San Francisco Giants come to mind.  And if you are looking for a long shot in cross country that made it all the way you might want to remember last year's Girls Cross Country team were also under dogs. 

The talent is certainly there for the Warriors and if they all perform at their best on the same day they are in the running to finish in the top three in the section. Taking a look at what the Warriors have done this season is impressive.  Morgan Lira and Emily Blaha have both run under 19 minutes this year for three miles.  Isabel Garcia boasts a 19:38 personal best at 5k and ran 21 minutes at Mt.Sac in her first race back from injury.  Sarah Blaha ran 20:46 at Mt. Sac two weeks ago and when you take into consideration that Kellianne Connolly has run 21:03 at Early Bird at the start of the season and Jessica was low 21 at Golden Gate Park, things look pretty good.  And don't forget about Morgan Rosa-Diniz and Karen Mac who have both gone under 22.

Perhaps "Don't Stop Believing" should also be adopted as the theme of this year's team because THEY CAN!  They have before, they just need to do again.