Career personal bests and course records were set so often this season that the Culver City High School cross country coaches finally had to divert their attention from charting Centaur feats to preparing strategies for Ocean League and CIF finals.
From underclass to varsity, runners on both the boys and girls teams rapidly improved their times to give head coach Tom Fritzius and assistant Lew Winters boundless optimism as they look ahead to next season. A majority of the cross country runners are freshman, sophomores and juniors.
A dozen runners established career personal bests, including senior Dylan Bourne's (17:51) personal course record in the recent Apache XC Invitational at Arcadia Park on a fast course.
Records were set by senior Babandeep Singh (16:32), senior Benny Baldovino (18:09), junior Skylar Kim (18:23), junior Steven Kakehashi (19:47), junior Imanuel Chen (19:51), sophomore Kevin Liu and senior Anthony Lopez.
Other impressive times were run by junior Jeffrey Asai (18:06), sophomore Evan Mcnally (18:21), senior
Charles Back (18:41), junior Sho Harikawa (18:42) and sophomore Robert Heyl (19:05).
Personal marks for the girls were set by freshman Akela Morinaka (22:01), freshman Logan Kim (22:10),
Sophomore Tayler Rodriguez (23:39 - an improvement of 2 minutes, 43 seconds), sophomore
Jessica Mendez (24:36), and sophomore Elisabeth Yu. Morinaka managed to knock 45 seconds off
of her personal best despite being affected by the flu.
Junior Inez Alvarez (22:01), sophomore Jasmine Dimeo (24:26) and sophomore Dana Winters (24:41) had solid efforts, according to Fritzius.
Medals were won by Morinaka, Alvarez and Kim.
Centaur runners raced to 11 more course personal bests and five career personal bests on a difficult course at the Mt. Sac. Invitational.
The boys squad achieved its best performance in recent memory, according to Fritzius.
"In the past we have had at most three runners finishing with a sub 20:00 time. This year we had nine, six coming in at 18:40 or better," said Fritzius.
Personal course records were set by Singh (17:13), Asai (18:01), Back (18:16), Bourne (18:31), McNally (18:30), Heyl, (19:11) and Kim (19:46).
Freshmen Kevin Cortez, Gerid Goodwin and Nathan Jimenez, and senior Anthony Lopez set personal records.
Junior Sho Harikawa (19:13) and Baldovino (18:40) also ran well, noted Winters.
For the girls, Alvarez set a course personal best, while sophomore Courtney Chappell set a career personal best and Morinaka tied her career personal best.
The girls were led by Alvarez (22:22), followed by Morinaka (22:46), Kim (22:47), sophomore Ellis Kennedy (25:26), Dimeo (25:28), and Winters (25:46).
"Most of our girls are young and despite being overwhelmed by the thousands of competitors participating in this meet, they performed way above expectations," said Fritzius.
Some 23 Centaur runners scored personal bests on the most difficult venue in which the team runs at the Ocean League meet at Kenneth Hahn Park.
Singh, Asai, Back, Heyl (an improvement of 1:22.06), Baldovino (an improvement of 1:41.55), Harikawa, Bourne, Kakehashi and Cortez (a 1:00.53 improvement) ran their best times ever on the course along with
sophomore Kevin Liu (a 2:15.08 improvement), Chen, Goodwin (a 2:55.15 improvement), junior Drake Myers and Lopez.
Course marks were set by Morinaka (a 2:39.46 improvement), freshman Miya Torimaru,
Kim (a 1:39.33 improvement), Dimeo, Winters (a 4:46.76 improvement), junior Bre Clay (a 1:16.68 improvement), Mendez (a 4:16.65 improvement), Back (a 1:20.69 improvement) and Yu (a 2:00.92 improvement).
