Mira Costa sweeps first Bay cross country meet on home course

Mira Costa’s Olivia Hacohen won the first Bay League cross country meet on the Mustangs new home course. Photo

Mira Costa’s cross country program made the most of its new on-campus course last Thursday capturing the boys and girls team titles in the first Bay League meet.

The Mustang girls narrowly defeated Redondo outscoring their rivals 30-32. Palos Verdes, who was competing without its top runner Grace Catena, finished third with 72 points and ahead of Peninsula (105).

“It was really exciting for both Jeff (Atkinson) and I to have this back on our home course at Costa,” Mira Costa’s girls coach Renee Williams-Smith sais. “We had a lot more spectators than usual and you could see the kids in several spots throughout the course so it was really fun for everyone watching. It was an electric atmosphere with the course running around our brand new field while football, rugby, lacrosse, and the band were all practicing.”

Mira Costa had four runners finish in the top ten in the 3-mile race and was led by junior Olivia Hacohen who won the race with a time of 17 minutes, 16 seconds. Brooke Inouye finished fourth at 17:40, Cara Chittenden was sixth (17:56) and Lucy Atkinson was eighth (18:19)

“The girls are running strong and working really hard right now,” Williams-Smith added. “We have had a lot of kids sick but the ones that were healthy really stepped up to secure the win at the league meet which was closer than we would have liked. We have been running pretty high level races this year to get us used to running with D1 teams which we are going to face in CIF. The Bay League is always one of the strongest in California so it was another opportunity to race at a high level.”

Redondo turned in a strong performance also having four runners in the top ten and three of the first five.

Peyton Heiden (17:30) edged teammate Lila Copeland (17:33) who finished second and third, respectively. Molly Hastings (5th, 17:40) and Shelby Bender (9th, 18:24) helped keep the Sea Hawks close.

Peninsula’s Jessica Nye (7th, 18:16) and Palos Verdes’ McKenna (10th, 18:25) rounded out the top ten.

Mira Costa’s Xavier Court continued his successful season capturing the boys race. Photo

In boys competition, Mira Costa finished 1-2-3 with race favorite Xavier Court (15:08) defeating teammates Quinn Satow (15:16) and Cy Chittenden (15:20). Chris Shirazi (9th, 15:34) aso placed in the top ten for the Mustangs.

Mira Costa won the team title handily with 26 points, well ahead of Palos Verdes (41), Redondo (62) and Peninsula (101).

Redondo’s Benjamin Tait placed fourth at 15:21. Palos Verdes had four runners in the top ten with William Teets (5th, 15:22), Brandon Farnsworth (6th, 15:27), Wade Nygren (8th, 15:30) and Ryan Shirazi (10th, 15:36).

Peninsula was led by Kade Wong who placed seventh at 15:27.

The Bay League meet served as a tuneup for the 70th annual Brooks Mt. SAC Cross Country Invitational where high school athletes will compete Saturday, Oct. 21 beginning at 7 a.m.