After Jumping Track, La Canada at Trail Head
LA CANADA — Can a group of distance runners who struggled during track season rebound to win a third consecutive state Division III cross-country title?
That is the question being asked about the La Canada High girls' squad as the season begins.
La Canada defeated Redding Foothill, 46-96, for its second consecutive state Division III title at Woodward Park in Fresno last year, but only one runner from that squad had a noteworthy track season.
Amy Foss, who is at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, clocked a career best of 11:17.29 to place fourth in the 3,200 meters in the Southern Section Division III final, but everyone else struggled, if they ran at all.
Kim Garnic, who is at Cornell, took the season off.
Senior Christina Ellis had her season cut short by a knee injury and junior Nicole Bonino quit in the middle of the season.
"I think it's because I basically [stink] as a track coach," said Dennis McNulty, a co-coach with Tony Haynes in cross-country. "I just haven't been able to get the girls to run as well in track as they do in cross-country. We went into last track season thinking we had a pretty good four-mile relay team and we did nothing."
Bonino, defending Southern Section Division III champion, said she was worn out midway through track season after running cross-country and playing soccer.
"It was just better for me to take the rest of the [track] season off," Bonino said. "I should do better [next season] because I'm not going to play soccer."
Bonino, fifth in the state cross-country championships last year, is one of five returning runners from the state championship team last year.
The others are Ellis, 20th in the state meet; sophomore Carina Garnic, 23rd; junior Emily Weightman, 64th and junior Becky Zentmyer, 71st.
Junior Rachel Frandsen, who ran for La Canada's varsity in the section preliminaries last year, and sophomore Emily Farr, who is running cross-country for the first time after winning the 400 meters in the Rio Hondo League finals in track, are two others who could compete for top-five spots.
McNulty, who has coached with Haynes for the last five seasons, is very high on Farr, a soccer player he describes as "extremely tough and competitive."
With that kind of talent, La Canada earned the top ranking in the state Division III poll and 17th in the nation by Harrier magazine. But Ellis knows those rankings will mean nothing if the Spartans don't improve upon their performances from track.
